ABN AMRO: half a million extra senior homes needed in the Netherlands

Photo: ANP

The Netherlands will need at least 400,000 to 500,000 new homes for the elderly in the coming years. According to ABN AMRO experts, this solves several problems at the same time. For example, the transition in the housing market will get going, while healthcare costs will increase less rapidly because the extra living space will probably enable the elderly to live independently for longer.

Sector banker Claire van Staaij of the financial group explains that many elderly people now want to move to a senior home, but do not do so because there is no suitable and affordable offer. As a result, a large proportion of the elderly continue to live in multi-storey single-family homes. As a result, these somewhat larger houses are not for sale. And this means that younger people who think about family formation, for example, are being duped because they are forced to live smaller than they actually would like.

The lack of mobility among the elderly has recently been cited several times as one of the causes of the problems in the housing market, where house prices are rising rapidly and the housing supply has dwindled considerably. However, according to Van Staaij, a well-substantiated calculation and the link with healthcare have remained underexposed. “The elderly are the fastest growing demographic group in our country. Appropriate and affordable housing for the elderly should therefore form an integral part of the housing task,” says the sector banker.

In Van Staaij’s view, roughly half of the nearly 1 million new homes that the government wants to have built by 2030 should be for the elderly. For this estimate, she consulted figures from, among others, the Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS) and the Dutch Healthcare Authority (NZa).

This concerns smaller homes, on the ground floor and without barriers, with a somewhat more spacious bathroom and close to amenities such as the supermarket and the library. A communal garden, for example, would also be welcome. Van Staaij thinks that if the elderly are given the opportunity to move to such homes, they will also be less likely to have to rely on care. “This is more pleasant for the elderly themselves, reduces the pressure on the healthcare sector and also results in a milder increase in healthcare costs.”