A place for all households in urban areas

Abstract

Due to several factors, under which the widespread flexibilization in the job market and the fact that it ended up becoming more difficult to take out a mortgage, middle-income households ended up not having access to owner-occupied housing in Dutch urban areas. Also, middle-income households’ incomes are too high to qualify for the social housing segment. Therefore, they depend on private rental housing in the Randstad. However, there is a shortage of private rental housing. Due to this lack of private rental housing, rental housing prices have increased tremendously. And this occurred while households’ incomes have not been rising to the same extent. Furthermore, organisations that rely on key workers have a more difficult time finding employees in urban areas. Middle-income households, including the households that can potentially fill up these vacancies, are often forced to move to other areas to find housing that fits their preferences. Therefore, it is essential to gain knowledge of how private rental housing for middle-income households can become affordable. Having knowledge of housing affordability in relation to housing preferences is vital to understand how the private rental housing supply for middle-income households can be increased and preserved in urban areas. Therefore, this research seeks to answer: “How can the rental housing supply in urban areas in the Netherlands, that is affordable for middle-income households, be increased following their preferences?” With this research question posed, the research aims to provide insight into middle-income households' housing affordability. It also aims to present the middle-income households’ rental housing preferences. To reach this aim, the methodology applied in this research is a mixed-method with an embedded design. This research made use of the WoON 2018 data and the semi-structured interview method. To conclude, the findings of this research were validated by an expert panel. The comprehensive quantitative research, regarding what middle-income’s housing preferences are, demonstrated that these preferences are not sufficiently affordably facilitated in Groot-Amsterdam. Delving into these results together with the qualitative research, this study determined what instruments could be used to increase and preserve the affordable rental housing supply for middle-income households following their housing preferences. This research evinced that in Groot-Amsterdam, housing with five rooms is not sufficiently facilitated in the mid-segment rental housing supply. Additionally, for the couple, couple-one-child, couple-two-children, couple-three-children, and one-parent-three-children households earning a gross annual income near €36,798, mid-segment rental housing is not affordable. In order to provide affordable housing for all middle-income households, the central government should assume a more active role in steering toward increasing the mid-segment rental housing supply. Thereby, they should enlarge the housing associations’ playing field. Furthermore, they should limit their role to spatial planning, providing infrastructure, and providing monetary means. Next to that, there should be a balance between municipal demands on development programmes and land prices. Together, the municipality and market actors should determine the demands of the development programme. An independent third party should calculate the residual land value.