Amsterdam Parliament Seeks Three-Year Freeze for Housing Resales

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Amsterdam’s city legislature approved a proposal that would require home buyers to reside there for at least three years in an effort to prevent investors from snapping up houses just to sell them on for a higher price.

The rule would apply to the so-called mid-price segment -- 175,000 euros ($196,000) to 297,000 euros -- in the Dutch capital, according to the proposal backed by a majority in the city’s parliament in a vote Thursday evening.

Under the proposal, home buyers in Amsterdam’s hot housing market will be sanctioned if they sell mid-segment property within three years, though some hardship exemptions will be built into the legislation. A precise time line on the implementation is not yet known.

To read more on Amsterdam’s plan to cap house prices, click here

In parallel, Dutch Interior Minister Kajsa Ollongren is currently working on legislation that would give municipalities with tight housing markets the power to cap prices for new rental contracts at a certain percentage of a government-set property value.

To contact the reporter on this story: Ruben Munsterman in Amsterdam at rmunsterman1@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Dale Crofts at dcrofts@bloomberg.net, Wout Vergauwen, Joost Akkermans

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