Home exchange as smart way out of years of waiting times

The Dutch housing market remains a problem child. Anyone registering for a social rental home now can expect a waiting time of a decade or more in many regions. The Jetten government, which only took office in February 2026, has made speeding up housing construction a priority, but the first effects on waiting lists are still some time away. For tenants who do not want to wait for years, interest in an alternative is therefore growing: home exchange. This involves two tenants switching homes directly, without either of them having to start again at the bottom of a waiting list.

Waiting times to rise further in 2026

The average registration time for a social rental house will have risen further in 2026. In many regions, the average is now around 125 months, or 10 years and 5 months. This is according to figures from regional landlords who also use this registration period in priority schemes. In some municipalities, the waiting time is even much higher. In Purmerend, house seekers are registered for an average of 17.3 years before they get a social home, figures released in late 2025 show. In urban regions such as Utrecht, the average waiting time also exceeds 11 years, with an active search time of almost six years.

The problem plays out nationwide. In about a quarter of Dutch municipalities, house seekers are registered for more than seven years on average before being allocated a house. The top-ten longest waiting times include almost all municipalities in North Holland, with peaks well above 20 years.

Jetten cabinet bets on acceleration

The new cabinet, sworn in on 23 February 2026, has the housing shortage high on its agenda. Housing Minister Elanor Boekholt-O'Sullivan announced in April 2026 a broad package of measures to accelerate construction. The government is making €287 million available to support municipalities to speed up permitting, increase factory construction and make better use of existing buildings. A special Taskforce Versnelling Woningbouw (Acceleration of Residential Construction), in which six trade ministers work together, should remove obstacles.

The coalition agreement of D66, VVD and CDA states that 30 sites will be designated for new neighbourhoods or cities. The cabinet also wants it to be easier to divide an existing house into more dwellings, or to build an extra floor on a house. The aim is to build 100,000 homes a year across the Netherlands.

Ambitious on paper, but practice shows how big the task is. In the first half of 2025, housing associations built just over 9,100 social housing units. The National Performance Agreements from December 2024 state that 30,000 new social housing units should be built annually from 2029, and that target should preferably be met as early as 2027. To achieve that, building production needs to be more than one-and-a-half times higher than at present. Added to this, while 272,000 social housing units will be added between 2025 and 2035, 140,000 will also be demolished or sold. The net effect is that the share of social rent in the housing market will fall towards 25 per cent.

Affordable Rent Act under the microscope

Another development relevant to tenants concerns the Affordable Rent Act. This law, introduced under the previous cabinet to curb rents in the free sector, is being "reviewed" by the Jetten cabinet. That means the law is being evaluated and possibly amended to improve the investment climate for landlords. The idea is that more investors will put rental properties back on the market if the rules are more favourable. Nothing will change for sitting tenants in the short term, but long-term supply may be affected.

At the same time, earlier plans to freeze rents in 2025 and 2026 did not go ahead, partly because of a critical opinion from the Council of State. As a result, corporation rents rose by an average of 4.5 per cent in July 2025. In market rents, rents rose by 4.9 per cent nationwide. For 2026, the maximum rent increase will be linked to a three-year average of inflation to avoid large fluctuations.

Demand grows, supply lags

Tension in the market is high. The WoonOnderzoek Nederland 2024, published by the ministry in April 2025, counted 3.6 million households with a desire to move. About half of these are independent households who want to move on to another property. For many of those people, the ordinary route via Woningnet or a similar regional system is not a realistic option in the foreseeable future.

The liberalisation limit for social rent is 879.66 euros of bare rent per month in 2025. Those who move via the ordinary route may face a rent increase to the current market level when entering into a new contract.

Home exchange: taking control yourself

In this tight landscape, more and more tenants are opting for home exchanges. In an exchange, two tenants use the right of substitution, regulated by Article 7:270 of the Civil Code. They exchange addresses directly, each getting a new rental contract for their new home and thus bypassing the waiting list.

The advantages are clear. No waiting for years. No loss of accumulated registration time. No unfocused competition with hundreds of other house seekers. And unlike the regular system, where people often respond to everything that comes along, home swaps revolve around a conscious choice between two tenants who want to take over each other's homes.

Finding an exchange partner is done online these days. Tens of thousands of tenants are registered on national platforms such as SocialeWoningruil.nl, where they post their home with photos and description and indicate where they want to go. The platform pairs tenants with opposite desires. Upon a match, they make contact, schedule a viewing and, if both parties are satisfied, submit a request to their landlord. In practice, most housing associations cooperate, partly because a swap contributes to the flow that the sector is struggling with.

A trend that will continue for the time being

The Jetten cabinet's plans are ambitious, but their effects will not really be felt on waiting lists for several years. For individual tenants who are now stuck in housing that no longer fits, home swaps are one of the few ways to quickly change their situation. Every successful swap means that two households live better than before, without having to add a property. And in a market where every move counts, that is profit. More and more Dutch tenants are discovering that they don't have to wait for policy measures to roll their way. They are initiating that movement themselves.