New build sells ever worse: more than 19 percent fewer homes off plan

Sales of new-build homes keep falling. In the first quarter of 2026, 5,126 new homes changed hands, more than 19 percent fewer than a year earlier. It is the third quarter in a row that the counter comes in lower. And that while the rest of the buyers' market is actually picking up.

The figures come from Statistics Netherlands, the Land Registry and Eurostat. They sketch a market moving in two directions. If you are looking for an existing home, supply is growing and sales are rising. If you are hoping for new build, you see the opposite.

Existing homes are picking up

Existing homes did well. Almost 56,000 of them were sold in the first three months of this year, up 8.7 percent on last year. Add new build and existing homes together and the total comes to more than 61,000 homes sold.

Sales of existing homes rose by 8.7 percent.

None of it is cheap. An existing home cost 492,000 euro on average, more than 5 percent up on a year ago. New build was still more expensive at an average of 516,000 euro, although the price rise there lagged slightly at 4.6 percent.

Where does the fall come from?

It is not demand. Chief economist Peter Hein van Mulligen of Statistics Netherlands says the appetite for homes remains undiminished. He points to the other end of the chain: simply fewer building permits have been issued. Fewer permits means fewer projects, and fewer projects means fewer homes going on sale.

Housing market expert Matthieu Zuidema of the Land Registry is more cautious. In his view a watertight explanation is hard to give. He sees a cooling housing market, and on top of that uncertainty about energy prices weighs on new build in particular. Striking, because new build is energy efficient. But if you buy a home that will only be delivered in two years, you sign less readily in uncertain times.

Fewer permits issued now translate into fewer new-build homes sold.

What does this mean for the longer term? That is where the real sting is. New build that is not sold now will not be built later. Developers only start a project once a substantial share of the homes has been sold on paper. If pre-sales lag, building projects slip or are cancelled altogether. The housing shortage, already one of the biggest bottlenecks of the moment, does not shrink as a result. Meanwhile the pressure moves to the existing stock, and that keeps prices there high.

The Netherlands sits mid-table in Europe

How does the Netherlands compare with its neighbours? The total price rise across all homes sold came to 5.2 percent. That puts us neatly around the European average. Elsewhere it went faster. Portugal took the crown with a rise of almost 18 percent, and prices also shot up in Croatia (14.3 percent) and Spain (12.8 percent).

At 5.2 percent price growth, the Netherlands sits around the European average.

There are also countries where the fire has gone out. In Luxembourg and Germany rises stayed below 2 percent. Finland even fell again; house prices there have been dropping since 2022.

What does the buyer notice?

For anyone looking for a home now the picture is mixed. The growing supply of existing homes gives a little more choice and a little more room to negotiate than a few years ago. At the same time, an average sale price of almost half a million euro shows there is no real cooling.

If you have your eye on new build, it pays to look beyond today's price. The shrinking supply of now is the shortage of the day after tomorrow. Once permit issuance picks up again, it takes years before those homes are actually delivered. Our expectation: the new-build market will stay stuck at this low pace for the coming quarters, while existing homes absorb demand. For sellers of an existing home that is good news. For the buyer hoping for an affordable new home, considerably less so.