Unequal level playing field and tenure bias

paternalism as driving force on the Dutch housing market

Conference paper (2017)

Authors

H. Priemus OLD Support RES
Research Group
OLD Support RES
Housing association Private landlord Landlord levy Unitary rental market Dual rental market
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Published Date

2017

Language

English

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Research Group

OLD Support RES

Abstract

In 2013 Dutch government introduced the so-called landlord levy (‘verhuurderheffing’), to be paid by owners of housing units with regulated rents. In 2017 this levy reached the annual level of € 1.7 billion.
In 2016 the landlord levy scheme was evaluated by the Ministry of Housing itself and by COELO, an independent research institute.
The Ministry of Housing stated that there are enough reasons to continue the landlord levy beyond 2016. The COELO-researchers concluded that the impacts of the landlord levy are negative: the affordability for low-income households is at stake and the investments in new social housing decreased dramatically.
We evaluate the evaluations and present the impacts on rents, the housing investments, the sale of social rented dwellings, and the management costs of housing associations, but in particular on the level playing field between social housing (mainly with regulated rents) and commercial housing (mainly with free rents). We argue that the landlord levy is a killer of tenure neutrality in the Dutch rented sector. It transforms the more or less unitary structure of the rental market into a dual structure. We finish our analysis with conclusions and recommendations, related to the current unequal level playing field in Dutch housing.

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