While there are signs of improvement in the Dutch housing market, planners should exercise caution in sanctioning new developments, according to a report from the Dutch environmental assessment agency.

In the long term, the number of young families with children will decline and the elderly will be selling their homes en masse, reducing the demand for family homes, the agency says.

By 2030, some 50,000 homes will come on the market as people born between 1945 and 1960 start moving into residential care and sheltered accommodation.

That is equivalent to the number of new homes built every year before the crisis began, the agency points out.