Housing associations spend a lot of money building, improving and making homes more sustainable. But in doing so, they spend more than they take in, and that is not sustainable in the long run.
In 2024, housing associations again invested substantially more in maintenance, the Aedes benchmark shows. Between 2021 and 2024, investments per home almost doubled from 126 euros to 225 euros per month. Last year, housing associations improved and made their homes more sustainable for 12.1 billion euros (+15.2 percent compared to 2023). The growth is partly due to higher construction costs, but mainly because corporations are investing more in their homes. The number of homes in which interventions over 10,000 euros were made increased significantly: in 2024, 192,790 homes received major interventions, compared to 153,110 homes in 2023.
In addition, housing associations insulated their homes and installed solar panels and heat pumps. As a result, the number of homes with an energy label A or better rose from 961,900 to 1,039,300. The number of homes with a poor label (E, F or G) decreased by more than 10 percent.
Borrowing quadrupled
But that same benchmark shows that rents from their residents are virtually the only source of income for housing associations. In 2024, the average rent of a housing association house was 611 euros per month. So for the fourth consecutive year, investments are not fully covered by rental income. In 2024, the housing association sector was short by an average of 48 euros per home each month. Therefore, to pay all expenses, corporations are increasingly dependent on loans. In 3 years, the amount corporations borrow more than quadrupled: from 50 euros to 216 euros per home per month.
That financial model is unsustainable in the long term, Aedes believes in a response. Without structural solutions - including long-term moderate rent increases, lower tax burdens or financial contributions from the government to their tasks - the investment power of housing associations is at risk of stagnating. Then the social mission of corporations - to ensure sufficient affordable, energy-efficient and high-quality social and middle-rent housing - will be jeopardized. The Netherlands cannot afford that in the current housing crisis.
'Abolish profit tax Vpb for corporations'
"Building lots of new homes is badly needed," said Aedes President Liesbeth Spies. "It is a handsome achievement that housing corporations are again delivering substantially more homes in recent years. They want to continue this to address the housing shortage. It can be done, but corporations are running up against their financial limits. The financing model must be adjusted in time, otherwise new construction will stagnate. The coming cabinet must offer corporations long-term security so that they can continue to use their investment capacity for tenants and house seekers. Start by abolishing the profit tax Vpb for corporations; the new cabinet must arrange this quickly. This money, raised by social tenants, is needed to deliver the agreed performance."
