Are you massively looking for a house with a garden?

The corona crisis has not yet had a negative impact on the housing market. At any rate, the hard figures show that the number of sales remains at the same level or even rises slightly. In addition, the supply is increasing, so more people are putting their homes up for sale. The motives behind these figures continue to speculate. It may be that people who have been looking around for some time now think: I’m going to sell first and only then buy. While in recent years the market has been so tight that many people went first to see if they could actually get the house of their dreams.

Feelings of uncertainty then play a role. People want to avoid double the cost of living in economically uncertain times. But maybe people also think: it is possible that the sales prices will drop in a while and soon the surplus value that I have now built up will drop sharply, so let me grab the profits now. A price drop may not yet occur, but no one can really look into the future, of course.

It is also striking that the search behaviour on Funda is increasing. More people are apparently looking for another house and the filters ‘garden’ and ‘outdoor space’ are used 20% more than before. Here is a possible explanation for the fact that people who have been forced to sit indoors for quite some time now and sometimes work and study at home in a family context are looking for more room to move around and fresh air. There are already experts who predict that the magnetism of the city will lose its power and that young people and young families are now massively searching for cheaper houses in the greenery. Maybe a bit further away from work, but yes, if working from home becomes the norm after all?

To be honest, I don’t think it will go that fast. Large shifts in demand patterns are usually quite slow. It takes more than one crisis to get young people out of the city. Precisely they haven’t let themselves be driven out of parks and I’ll be the first to see them sitting on the terrace with their laptops.