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Europe|As the Dutch Vote, One Issue Carries the Day: Affordable Housing
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/29/world/europe/netherlands-election-housing.html
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The small European nation of 18 million people is in the middle of its worst housing crunch in decades. But there is no quick political solution.
Oct. 29, 2025, 12:01 a.m. ET
When voters in the Netherlands head to the polls on Wednesday in elections, one issue will stand out as the most important for many, especially younger people: a rising shortage of affordable housing.
For large groups of students, graduates beginning work, young adults ready to start families and people looking for social housing, finding an affordable home or buying a property in the Netherlands has become nearly impossible.
Too many people are looking for homes, and there are not enough available. That has plunged many Dutch cities into an affordability crisis, for renters as well as for prospective home owners.
“I’d prefer to live by myself, but that’s impossible, even though I earn enough,” said Charlotte Stienstra, 33, a project manager in Amsterdam.
When her long-term relationship ended last year, she moved out of the house she had been renting since she was a student, hoping to buy a place. But getting on the property ladder proved unattainable. Instead, Ms. Stienstra moved in with a roommate in the northern part of Amsterdam, an area with a lot of new construction.
“It’s pretty much a full-time job on the side to find something,” she said.
The problems on the housing market in the Netherlands are the result of a near perfect storm many years in the making, experts say.
