ROTTERDAM, 28 May 2025 – Middle-income tenants in Rotterdam are facing fierce competition as demand for mid-range rental properties surges while availability continues to decline. With listings disappearing in less than a week, the chances of securing a home are slimmer than ever.
Rental pressure intensifies in Rotterdam’s middle segment
Rotterdam’s mid-range rental market (middenhuursegment) is being stretched thinner than ever before. New figures from Huurwoningen.nl and Pararius reveal that competition for regulated rentals in the city has reached staggering levels. During the first quarter of 2025, a single mid-range rental in Rotterdam received an average of 456 applications, significantly higher than the 74 responses garnered by comparable listings in the unregulated sector.
The situation is not much rosier in other Dutch metropolises, with Utrecht and Amsterdam reporting over 400 responses per listing. Still, it is in Rotterdam where the full gravity of the crisis is hitting home, quite literally.
A disappearing act: listings gone in days
Properties in the mid-range category, priced between €900,07 and €1.184,82, are now vanishing from the market faster than free samples at a Markthal food stall. In Q1 2025, these homes in the so-called “G5” (Rotterdam, Amsterdam, Utrecht, The Hague and Eindhoven) remained online for a mere six days on average. In Rotterdam, that is barely enough time to brew a cup of coffee, let alone schedule a viewing.
Comparatively, listings in the free sector loitered online for around 19 days, giving prospective tenants a bit more breathing room and hope.
From new law to new lows
The pressure cooker situation worsened following the introduction of the Wet betaalbare huur (Affordable Rent Act) on 1 July 2024. The legislation, aimed at making mid-range housing more accessible by regulating rents of homes below 187 WWS-points, appears to have backfired. Instead of boosting availability, it has coincided with a consistent drop in supply.
By Q1 2025, the number of mid-range rentals on offer had fallen by 12.7 percent compared to the previous year. Meanwhile, more homes are being let than are being listed, putting tenants in a perpetual game of musical chairs with fewer and fewer seats.
Size matters, and smaller is not necessarily available
While hopeful renters are battling over fewer homes, they are also being offered less space. The average size of a rented mid-range property in Q1 2025 shrank to 63.9m², down from 65.1m² the previous year.
In a twist of irony, the free sector has seen an uptick in the size of homes being rented, as smaller and once more affordable units are increasingly sold off (uitgepond) instead of being re-let. Pararius reports that over 1,800 such properties were removed from the rental pool and sold in early 2025, a 70 percent year-on-year increase.
A shrinking market and rising demand
According to Pararius director Jasper de Groot, “If homes are rented out within a week, there is no longer a healthy market at play. This is scarcity feeding on itself.”
For those attempting to find a place in Rotterdam’s tightening housing market, the situation resembles a housing-themed episode of “Wie is de Mol?” except everyone already knows the answer: it is the system.
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