Bouwinvest Joins PAM Alliance to build 10,000 Mid-Sector Amsterdam Rental Homes by 2025

Bouwinvest has joined forces with four other Dutch institutional real estate investment managers and social housing corporations to target the development of 10,000 mid-level rental sector affordable homes in the greater Amsterdam region by 2025 to tackle a chronic shortage in supply.

Dick van Hal, CEO of Bouwinvest and vice-chair of the IVBN (Association of Dutch Institutional Investors in Real Estate) said: “Dutch pension funds and insurers are major investors in rental housing development in the Netherlands alongside social housing corporations. We want to fulfil our social responsibilities by providing far more accommodation in the mid-level rental sector for key workers such as nurses, teachers and police officers. But it is difficult for us to compete for land with private companies paying higher prices and charging even higher rents, or selling on at a quick profit to owner occupiers, without government intervention to ensure a level playing field for socially responsible housing investors.” 

 The joint initiative called PAM (Platform Amsterdam Middenhuur) has been founded by institutional investment managers: Amvest, Bouwinvest, Syntrus Achmea, Vesteda and Wonam, as well as housing corporations De Alliantie, Eigen Haard, Rochdale, Stadgenoot and Ymere.

The mid-level sector covers those homes with a minimum 50 sqm floor area in the €725 to €1,000 euros per month rental band, for tenants earning between one-to-two times average income (€35,000 to €73,000 per year gross salaries).

The founding parties within the PAM alliance vouch to work towards providing affordable housing in Amsterdam for all income levels and to correct the current market imbalance, which means than on average every new housing development attracts demand that exceeds availability five fold.

PAM aims to achieve this by acting as the first point of contact and clearing house for information between stakeholders such as the city of Amsterdam and surrounding municipalities and tenant organisations.

The alliance wants to reserve 25% of its future combined mid-level sector supply of rental homes for ex-social housing corporation tenants, who have been displaced from their former accommodation by the Dutch Woningwet (Housing Accord) of 2013. This legislation restricted the provision of social housing to those below a certain minimum income level, but tenants earning more than this, so-called “upstream renters” are often struggling to find alternative living space in Amsterdam’s tightly supplied and expensive private rental housing market.

In order to be able to provide the future development to accommodate market demand, PAM is seeking assurances from the municipalities on the supply of reasonably priced development land in return for guarantees that rents will be capped at mid-rental segment levels for at least 25 years.