Housing market not (yet) affected by the corona crisis

The Dutch market for owner-occupied houses and the mortgages revolved at full speed in the first half of 2020. Thanks to the enormous package of support measures taken by central government and local authorities in the context of the corona crisis in the Netherlands, relatively few housing consumers seem to have really been affected in economic terms so far. Confidence in the owner-occupied housing market and general consumer confidence appear to have experienced a temporary and sharp dip only in April, shortly after the outbreak of the COVID-19 virus. At the macro level, the adverse effects of the corona crisis on Dutch households remained limited in the first two quarters of 2020 due to that package of support measures. As a result, in the owner-occupied housing market and the mortgage market it was "business as usual" last month. If unemployment were to rise sharply in the second half of this year, this could have a negative effect on consumers' willingness to buy.

Read the full article in Dutch here.