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September 26, 2023

De impact van leennormen op huurders, huizenbezitters en investeerders

Aangescherpte leennormen op hypotheken maken een huis kopen lastiger. Doordat starters minder kunnen lenen kunnen potentiële verhuurders makkelijker huizen kopen. Toch heeft het verhogen van de leennomen naar verwachting weinig zin om de positie van koopstarters verbeteren. Dat veroorzaakt namelijk weer hogere prijzen.
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September 26, 2023
Since the financial crisis, home ownership rates have decreased across the world. Also in the Netherlands, the size of the rental sector has increased. Decreased access to mortgage debt explains part of this development. We show that tightened mortgage debt limits explain a fifth of the increase in rentals between 2013 and 2019.
houses

Mortgage debt limits constrain the amount a household can borrow to purchase a home. When a household cannot buy a house, it might rent instead. As a result, investors purchase homes to let and houses shift into the rental sector. Based on a new model of the interaction between the owner-occupied and rental sectors of the housing market, we show that this distortion can be sizable.

Taxing rents or imposing a cap on the number of rentals can partially counteract the effects of mortgage debt limits on the number of rentals. However, such measures tend to also push households that prefer to rent into owner-occupation. Hence, they are counterproductive when taken too far.