Many landlords are putting up the rent on houses and flats in line with inflation this year, the Financieele Dagblad said on Friday.

On average the rise will be 2.5% from July, the traditional moment for increasing home rents, the FD said. The paper contacted some of the country’s biggest rental companies to find out what their policy is.

Amvest is planning to raise rents by 2.6%, Vesteda 2.5% and Syntrus Achmea between 2.4% and 3.5%, depending on the contract, the paper said. Housing corporations too plan to raise rents by an average of 2.5% – below the current rate of inflation of 2.6%.

Earlier this year, rental property lobby group IVBN said it recommended members raise rents by no more than inflation plus 1%.

Housing corporations earlier reached an agreement not to evict tenants during the coronavirus crisis, or charge extra fees to tenants who run up debts.

Landlords have also agreed that short-term contracts can be renewed for one more period before they become permanent.

Tenants organisations had called for moderation in this year’s rental increase round because of the coronavirus crisis and the impact it is having on many tenants’ incomes.

However, landlords told the FD that very few of their tenants had reported having problems paying their rent so far.

Not all private landlords are putting up rents this year. Bouwinvest, which invests on behalf of the construction sector pension fund, is freezing the rent on its 17,500 rental properties during the pandemic, the FD said.

More supply

Meanwhile, the number of rental properties available via website Pararius rose by 15.7% in April, broadcaster NOS reported.

The increase is due to landlords placing apartments on the platform which are usually rented out as short-stay or holiday lets, and the fact that expats have been leaving, the broadcaster said.

However, very few people in the DutchNews.nl survey on international worker attitudes to coronavirus said they planned to quit the Netherlands, or that they had already lost their jobs.