Bridging the affordability gap

Abstract

Housing affordability is a topic of all times, however, on the current Dutch housing market it is an increasing urgency and thus increasingly harder to find to many Dutch households. The housing shortage, combined with the booming economy, are causing housing prices to rise relatively fast. Although the housing market is pressured in many different regions and is affecting many households, especially middle income groups seem to suffer from the situation. These households generally earn too much to be eligible for social housing, but too little to obtain a regular mortgage. They are therefore located between the social rented sector and full-price homeownership, and increasingly have to rely on private rented housing (in Dutch also referred to as middeldure huur), where rent prices are often disproportionate to their income. A solution to bridge this ‘affordability gap’ are intermediate housing tenures, however, they are no longer applied on a larger scale due to the change of the Housing Act in 2015, as housing associations since then have to focus on their core activity (providing social housing). However, especially when housing affordability is becoming an increasing urgency to a growing group of households, it is remarkable that the main type of providers are being limited in their possibilities to do so. The main aim of this research therefore is to explore the potential enhancement of the Dutch intermediate housing sector, so that the provision of these tenures could be stimulated again. To be able to come up with measures that could be taken, an understanding of intermediate housing tenures in general, and the context in which Dutch intermediate tenures are operated, must be gained. The research therefore also aims to gain more insights in the concept of intermediate housing tenures and its characteristics and to understand the context in which intermediate tenures are and could be developed. In this research, literature study is carried out first, in which intermediate tenures have been defined and categorized, and a timeline of the development of Dutch intermediate housing tenures has been created with contextual factors that have shaped this development. The literature study has been complemented with an empirical study, in which interviews have been conducted to identify additional factors that (could) hinder or enable the development and provision of such tenures. Based on these findings, recommendations have been formulated that include measures that could be taken to enhance the context of intermediate housing tenures nowadays. These recommendations have been validated by housing professionals by means of an expert panel. The main measures include a more active role of the municipality to facilitate and stimulate the provision of such tenures in their municipality (varying in different levels of ‘activeness’), a national housing policy including intermediate housing tenures or other affordable housing solutions and demanding action from municipalities, setting up an advocacy group that unites all users of intermediate tenures and represents their interests and keeps track records of applied intermediate tenures to provide tangible proof of success, and focussing on developing potential new intermediate tenures that combine renting with capital accumulation or eventual homeownership.