The world's largest rented residential real estate owner is looking for more opportunities in the Netherlands, as the slight easing in Dutch regulation makes the market more attractive to international capital.

As the Netherlands grapples with a severe housing shortage, the Dutch Essential Housing Venture, a €1B partnership between pension fund ABP and real estate firm Greystar, invests in building new affordable rental homes for middle-income earners such as starters, retirees and key workers, who earn too much for social housing but cannot afford the free market.

More than two years after the joint venture launched, Mark Kuijpers, senior managing director for Greystar Central Europe, said he expects more to come.

“I think that there is a high likelihood that this venture will be further expanded in the future,” he told Bisnow in an interview.

“The need for housing in the Netherlands is still pretty high."

He stressed that nothing regarding the venture's future has been “cleared yet.” So far, the venture — which is managed through APG, ABP's asset management arm — has €946M in disclosed commitments, funding three projects totaling 2,119 homes across the Randstad, in Leiden, The Hague and Utrecht. 

The company is searching for more opportunities to step in and provide funding to developments at an early stage of the process.

The idea of expansion comes after the House of Representatives voted in June to back the housing minister’s changes to the rent point system to make renting more appealing for landlords, including a price surcharge to rental housing currently subject to the WOZ-cap, set to take effect from January 2027.

In the Netherlands, all rental homes are allocated points under the Woningwaarderingsstelsel for amenities such as energy label, floor space, the number of rooms and WOZ value, which are then used to set and determine the maximum legal rent amount.

In 2026, rental homes with up to 143 points fall under social housing, with rent capped at €933 a month. Homes with 144 to 186 points are part of the regulated midrent, capped at €1,228, and homes over 186 points are in the free sector, where the landlord sets the rent.

The joint venture with ABP is part of the latter's target of investing €5B in affordable Dutch rental housing by 2030, as part of a €10B impact target, and Kuijpers said the venture grew out of a longstanding relationship. 

Greystar has been active in the Netherlands for “roughly 12 years,” working for separate account clients and its own pan-European funds. It has partnered with ABP via APG internationally for 15 years, and this is the pair's first tie-up in Europe. When ABP committed to helping to tackle the Dutch housing shortage, the venture was “a logical step,” Kuijpers said.

ABP committed €420M in June 2024 and a further €500M in September 2025, when Greystar invested €26M. 

The first of the three projects the venture purchased is a 780-home development in Leiden, bought from Ten Brinke Lubro Ontwikkeling. Construction began in September 2024, and the first phase is due in 2027. The second project is 560 homes at Waldorp Four in The Hague from developer Sustay. Construction started in November 2024. 

The third, Merwede Block 1 in Utrecht, comprises 300 student homes, 305 midrent homes, 89 free-sector homes and 85 short-stay units, due for completion in 2028.

At least two-thirds of the portfolio will fall in the regulated and midrental segments, and all homes must meet energy label A+++ and BREEAM-NL Excellent certification.

Getting projects like these off the ground is where things often go awry, Kuijpers said. The Netherlands keeps approving more homes than it builds: In 2025, permits were issued for nearly 86,000 new-build homes, while only 69,000 were completed, according to Statistics Netherlands, or CBS. Kuijpers notes that the disparity in new-build housing is less about planning and grid congestion and more about funding. 

“The problem occurs when projects are developed pretty far already,” he said. At the final design stage, developers are looking for investor bids and a contractor at the same time. “That is where we see a lot of projects get stuck, simply because the anticipated price that investors can pay for those buildings is less than expected, while construction costs are still pretty high.” 

Investors who come in earlier, while the unit mix and layouts are still being defined, “can actually still make really good projects,” he pointed out.

The pipeline is also thinning, as permits for new-build homes dropped 9% in 2025, which was the third consecutive year that fewer homes were built. The 69,000 figure was well short of the government's aim to add 100,000 new homes to the stock annually. 

A typical new home in the Netherlands now takes almost two years to be completed once a permit is granted, up to a year and a half in 2015. Half of the apartments completed in the first three quarters of 2025 took more than 29 months from permit to completion, according to CBS, with CBS's chief economist citing various causes, including scarce urban sites and grid congestion.

Kuijpers acknowledged that the years of regulatory and tax changes have impacted residential investment, but he believes the direction is turning.

“The Dutch government very well understands that imposing further regulation is not going to be helpful when it comes to attracting capital,” he said.

Some relief in that regard has already arrived. For example, transfer tax on residential investment purchases fell from 10.4% to 8% in January. While the changes to the rental points system are mainly aimed at small private landlords, many of whom have been selling up, for developers of new midrent housing like Greystar, the more relevant change is the extension of a 10% rent surcharge to projects that start construction up to 2032.

Coming after the introduction of the Wet betaalbare huur (the Affordable Rent Act), which took effect July 1, 2024, and included maximum rent caps mandatory for social and midrent housing to ensure new-build projects, like the ones Greystar and ABP finance, would not be canceled or delayed, a temporary 10% surcharge on the maximum rent was introduced for housing in the midrent segment.

Kuijpers foresees a similar supply gap opening up outside the Randstad, where Greystar would be interested in investing.

“We’ve got a strong pipeline,” he said. “If APG and ABP could continue to invest in the Dutch residential market, we'd be happy to team up with them on that.” 

Any expansion would sit alongside Greystar's own pan-European funds, he added, which take on more development risk and target a wider group of tenants, including students and free-market renters.

Outside of Greystar's venture with ABP, a lot of the firm's activity in the Netherlands is focused within the Amsterdam Zuidoost Amstel III district, where it operates more than 1,500 homes and is developing close to 3,000 new homes through projects including OurDomain South East, The Ensemble and the 561-home &Amsterdam, due for completion in 2028.

Greystar also operates other rental housing developments such as the 614-home Canvas Living scheme at Rotterdam's Brainpark and Merwede Block 2 in Utrecht, while selling stabilized assets like the OurDomain Rotterdam Blaak and OurCampus Diemen, and retaining management roles, in line with its develop/stabilize/sell model.