The midpoint of 2025 is a delicate moment for the Dutch real estate market, especially when it comes to the international investors who have boosted deal volumes for the past two decades.
On the one hand, falling European interest rates, a stable economy and a solid occupier market in key sectors make the Netherlands an attractive prospect, especially as investors look again at Europe in the wake of U.S. volatility.
On the other hand, residential and tax regulation makes the Netherlands a trickier prospect for international players.
With a fresh set of elections in October following the June dissolution of the previous government, the real estate sector is hoping for clarity and rule tweaks to entice investors back to the market, and in turn build the residential stock and greener commercial buildings the country desperately needs.
“It seems fairly easy to become a very attractive destination for foreign investors, but we are not doing everything we could to make that happen,” APG Asset Management Head of European Property Investments Robert-Jan Foortse told Bisnow.
APG manages investment for the €520B ABP pension fund and is one of the largest direct owners of real estate in the world, with more than €50B of property assets.
There was €4.2B invested in Dutch real estate in the first half of 2025, preliminary data from MSCI showed. That is slightly down on the €4.5B invested in the first half of 2024, but well up on the €3.2B invested in the first half of 2023.
As is the case in almost every country in the world, the expected recovery of real estate investment in 2025 has not come through, with global volatility caused by U.S. tariff policy putting investors in a cautious frame of mind.
Foreign investment has been particularly slow to return. Of that €4.2B, €1.5B came from cross-border investors, MSCI said, a proportion of 35%. That is well down on the recent highs of 2017 and 2019, when international buyers accounted for 65% and 62%, respectively.
“What is holding the Netherlands back lately is the political environment and the ever-increasing rules and regulations,” Foortse said. “That makes it harder for international investors to get their heads around investing in the Netherlands.”
Of note is an extension of rent controls to midmarket residential properties, which began to be enforced in January. Whether properties fall under the regulation is determined by a points system unique to the Netherlands, with the same system fixing a different maximum rent for different types of property. Dutch transfer tax for commercial property has also been increased to 10.4% from around 8%, making it less attractive to investors.
“Overseas investment is still very liquid and sizable, when you look at the overall size of the country,” said Jan-Willem Bastijn, head of EMEA transactions for direct real estate strategies at CBRE Investment Management. “We’ve seen quite a few foreign investors, and especially core and core-plus investors, sort of waiting at the sidelines to see what’s going on and when they can go back in again.”
The biggest overseas buyer pool in Dutch real estate, German open-ended funds, have on the whole been selling assets to meet investor redemptions and rebalance their portfolios away from the office sector, Bastijn added. More stability among that group of buyers and their French equivalents would likely increase cross-border investment into the Netherlands.
“There’s still foreign interest in the country, but maybe not through a Dutch-only fund or directly — much more via European structure where you can mitigate part of those tax issues,” CBRE Investment Management Client Solutions Senior Director Peter Bretveld added.
The biggest single deterring factor affecting real estate investment levels today is the progression of interest rates, and in that sense, the Netherlands benefits from the fact that the European Central Bank has dropped rates faster than its peers in the UK or U.S. — eight times since 2024. That puts the ECB base rate at 2%.
“Things are becoming more liquid, there are more transactions, although people are still being prudent,” AEW Netherlands Country Manager Frederique Weber said. “Financing has brought it back. And the fundamentals have not changed in a negative manner, especially in logistics.”
Logistics takeup in H1 was 2.7M SF (822,000 square metres), data from CBRE showed, the lowest level since 2014, as occupiers have sat in wait-and-see mode. A traditional powerhouse sector for the Netherlands because of its central location in Western Europe and the hub airport at Schiphol, logistics was the second-largest real estate asset class in H1, with €1B invested and another €2B expected to be invested in the second half.
AEW has been a significant investor in the sector in the Netherlands, and in April it bought a 49K SF (15,000 square metres) last-mile facility in The Hague.
Courtesy of CBRE Investment Management
CBRE IM’s Jan-Willem Bastijn
The largest sector for investment was rented residential, with €771M invested in the first quarter, up 35% on Q1 2024 — despite the new regulation. The imbalance between supply and demand is so pronounced that investors remain drawn to the sector. Lender ABN Amro estimated that the country has a shortfall of around 400,000 homes, out of a total housing stock of 8.2 million homes.
ABP has committed to investing €5B to build new midmarket rented residential accommodation between now and 2030. APG is managing that investment and has struck joint ventures with CBRE IM, Greystar and Bouwinvest to get buying and building.
APG and CBRE IM will invest €1B between them to build 3,000 units, starting with the forward funding of a 121-unit project called Cartesius in Utrecht.
“Leasing risk at the moment in this midmarket is virtually zero, because there is a waiting list for every property that is being delivered,” Foortse said. “We’re focusing on the locations that are appealing now but that we also think will be appealing in 10 to 15 years’ time. We think we have limited the risks enough to accept the corresponding return.”
CBRE IM’s Bastijn said that although it remains the most popular sector, rented residential is less crowded than two or three years ago, which means investors can be pickier and find deals with better returns.
Foortse said that ABP’s €5B venture will probably include investment in the senior housing realm and increasingly popular student sector. A joint venture between Rockfield and Ardian bought the 596-bed Minervahaven student housing building in Amsterdam’s Houthavens district as part of a €1B pan-European student housing strategy. They said the €120M deal was the largest Dutch student transaction on record and have followed that up with a 1,200-bed acquisition from Nido Living.
Office transactions remain severely depressed, with just €213M trading in the Netherlands in the first quarter, down from €1.25B in the first quarter of 2020.
That is despite the fact that for good-quality buildings in the best locations, rental growth is starting to appear.
Courtesy of CBRE Investment Management
Amsterdam’s World Trade Centre
Demand remains subdued on a national level — just 663K SF (202,000 square metres) was leased in the Netherlands in the first quarter, down from 909K SF (277,000 square metres) in the same period a year earlier.
But in Amsterdam, takeup jumped 57% from 108K SF (33,000 square metres) in Q1 2024 to 171K SF (52,000 square metres) in Q1 2025. While vacancy is rising across the capital as a whole, supply of high-quality new space in the best locations, such as the South Axis, is declining, which is leading to rental growth.
CBRE IM’s Bastijn said the refurbished tower 10 at the firm’s World Trade Centre office scheme is leasing at rents of €600 per square metre and that there is room for further growth, as is being seen in cities with similar dynamics, like London.
“I’ve just come back from Milan last week, where they don’t have the same dynamics, and their rents are going through €850 per square metre right now,” he said.
“And I dare to say Amsterdam can be at the same level, given the infrastructure changes that are coming through,” he added, citing projects like rail station redevelopment and public transport investment.
The market will be watching with interest to see whether Blackstone revives the sale of the 157K SF (48,000 square metre) Tripolis office building in the South Axis in 2026. It was put up for sale for €600M in 2024, but the listing was later pulled. A sale of the building would be a clear signal that investors are comfortable again with office deals.
But for now, despite these dynamics, investors remain wary of a sector that has seen values and volumes drop over the past four years.
“I think offices have been punished too hard. All offices are being treated the same, no matter the individual dynamics of the building,” AEW’s Weber said.
“Investors are not very actively pursuing offices because of what they see in the U.S., whilst I really think in the Netherlands, there’s a huge difference with things like the length of the commute.”