BRUSSELS, May 9 (Xinhua) -- Housing prices in the Netherlands will continue to rise in the coming years, according to Rabobank, one of the country's leading banks, Dutch paper Financiele Dagblad reported Friday.
Housing prices in the Netherlands will grow 3 percent on average both this year and next, which will virtually keep pace with inflation, Rabobank said in its Quarterly Report on the Housing Market published on Thursday.
The bank assumed in its prediction a modest rise in the mortgage interest rate, and a somewhat stronger growth in salaries. Thanks to continuing economic growth, houses in general will become more affordable, it said.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) recently published a report saying that the average house price in the Netherlands is inflated by 30 percent. If it is true, it could lead to a significant decline in housing prices.
But the claim is refuted by some Dutch analysts and the Dutch government planning agency, the Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis (CPB), published a study insisting that Dutch housing prices are not inflated.
The economic bureau of the Rabobank, market leader in mortgages in the Netherlands, agrees with the CPB. It said the supply of new houses continues to lag behind demand, which leaves no room for a drastic fall in prices.
Although there has been a significant decrease in house sales in the past two years, this is not an omen of a general price decrease, the bank said, attributing the longer time it takes to sell a house to a mismatch between supply and demand.
