Stop the rent explosion. Why we fight for lower rents!

In 2025, tenants can expect a rent increase of up to 5% in the social sector, 7.7% in the mid-range rental sector and 4.1% in the private sector. After the highest rent increase in 30 years in 2024, another mega rent increase will follow in 2025! The reprehensible income-related rent increases of €50 or €100 will also be maintained. While our wages have been and are being kept low for decades, the rent has increased enormously. These were the years in which housing was turned into a market. A quarter of tenants live below the poverty line and another large part cannot make ends meet financially, partly as a result of the excessively high rent. They have to cut back on basic needs in order to be able to pay the housing costs. With this policy, we are perpetuating inequality, insecurity of existence and the housing crisis. We demand lower rents!

Housing for people not for profit!

Housing is a human right, not a commodity. With the rent increase policy, politics is sending out a clear signal. They still expect tenants to pay for solving the housing crisis, the shortage of widely accessible public housing, making the housing stock more sustainable and solving overdue maintenance and widespread mold and moisture problems out of their own pockets via the housing corporations. Or that tenants are forced to pay through the nose and have to live in the private sector or in the middle rent sector that is far too expensive. In order to tackle the housing crisis, the government must structurally invest heavily in public housing instead of unilaterally passing the bill to the tenants and transferring tax money to rich shareholders!

Time for action! Join the fight for lower rents and refuse the rent increase!

Why are we fighting for lower rents?

Policy of infinite rent increase on rent increase has led to unaffordable rents for large groups of tenants. A quarter of the tenants is in financial trouble after paying the rent. This concerns more than 800,000 people!
Tenants are saddled with an (income-related) rent increase every year, but stay at the back of houses with deferred maintenance, defects, moisture and mold and often see for years no improvement at all of service or living pleasure, while rents continue to rise.
Rents are rising faster than wages. Since 1993, rents have risen by 153%Inflation rose during that period by 108% and the average increase in collective labor agreement wages remained stuck at 106%! Consider that many people who rent also do not have a fixed or stable income. This situation is untenable.
The percentage of our income that we pay for housing (the housing ratio) has increased 36,3% average highest among tenants and far above the Nibud standard of maximum 30% per household. More and more people are excluded from public housing and are forced to live in the overpriced private sector. Tenants between the ages of 18 and 25 have lost more than half of their disposable income.
By linking the rent increase to the increase in average collective labor agreement wages or inflation (plus a percentage) structural tax relief remains out of reach and become the growing poverty and inequality not addressed. Working tenants see every increase in income disappear into the pockets of their landlords. Moreover, the rent increase drives up inflation. This creates a spiral of rising inflation and rents.
The bill for the housing crisis is being passed on to households that have already been made vulnerable, while structural investments in public housing by the government have been lacking for years. Before 1980, there was 2% from GDP to housing and public housing and now that is still but 0.09%As a result, much more widely accessible public housing was built and rents were much lower.
The landlord levy, the tax on regulated rental properties, was introduced on 1 abolished in january 2023The housing associations have the landlord levy, which now costs them more than 13 billion euros has passed on the costs in higher rents. Tenants have paid this tax, of almost 2 months of the annual rent. Now that the landlord levy has been abolished, rents must go down.
While housing associations reinvest their income in social housing, they must profit tax pay. On average, for each social housing unit, almost one month's rent to the state treasury in profit tax (corporate tax). 1.4 billion annually. So money is being taken away from people with the lowest incomes. Housing corporations need to be democratized and fight together with tenants for the abolition of this, instead of passing the bill to tenants.
Organizations such as Aedes and the Housing Association, who claim to represent the voice and interests of tenants, facilitate and legitimize the revenue model and a policy of infinite rent increases by aiming for 'moderate' rent increases at or above inflation. They pass the bill on to the tenant, while there are large public investments in housing are needed to solve the housing crisis.
By means of policy efforts aimed at containment of social housing and more market forces in the rental sector, rents have risen dramatically. New construction is left far too much to predatory investors, land speculation and the market, which means that is built too expensive.
Slum landlords and institutional investors realize enormous returns and big profits. They do this in addition to the annual rent increase, with (too) high starting rents, rent increases in the event of transfer, purchase, speculation and liberalization of 100,000 (social) homesThe enormous increase in house prices also leads to WOZ value in the rental price to exploding rents.
Despite the fact that many rental prices are above the maximum allowable rental price, this is hardly enforced. Tenants who initiate procedures for rent reduction are systematically intimidated. There is hardly any enforcement here and landlords abuse their tenants. This leads to tenants paying too much and being poorly protected. 94% of the private landlords charges too much rent. That amounts to an average of 190 euros per month too much and in the G4 (Rotterdam, The Hague, Amsterdam and Utrecht) it even amounts to an average of 400 euros per month too much. So that is why; expropriate slum landlords and actively reduce the rents. In addition to excessively high rents, many slum landlords discriminate, intimidate and blackmail their tenants and tenants are presented with illegal rental contracts.
Housing struggle is a class struggle. By raising rents annually, landlords perpetuate their powerful position in society, protected by the government. While housing should be a right for everyone, it has become a commodity for the owning class. We want control over our lives and housing again.
Billions of euros go to mortgage interest deductions every year. In 2024, the damage will amount to more than 10 billion. This will increase house prices and the (wealth) inequality between tenants and buyers. Buyers are 90 times wealthier than rentersThere are also plans to increase the deduction for higher incomes again, while this money can also be used for rent reduction.
The rent increase has a severe impact on livelihood and quality of life of tenants and their families. Read the Black Book from The Hague here with stories from residents about what rent increases mean for them.
High rent translates into various forms of poverty. From the growth in the number food banks, energy and heating poverty, poor food, limited free time, stress, psychological complaints, health problems, forced relocations, lack of freedom and choice to the point of forced insecure work. Tenants often have to choose between a warm house or hot food. Rent and other fixed costs are the last thing that can be saved on. High rents take away our freedom and security of existence.
The government is dealing with symptoms. The higher rents lead to major problems and poverty among tenants. This is partly repaired with higher allowances, but those allowances are needed to repair the policy that previously led to a reduction in purchasing power. This is therefore not a solution. Through the rent allowance property owners are subsidized and their profits are secured. Pumping money around creates a greater dependency and risk for residents. Not everyone has access to benefits and the sustainability of benefits depends on political choices. And after the benefits scandal, a large part of the population does not dare to apply for benefits.
After privatization in the 1990s, corporations became foundations who have started to behave like companies instead of democratic associations that offer tenants a say and provide good and affordable housing for broad sections of the population. The tenants pay for this.
By means of gentrification and financialization have homes become a commodity instead of a basic right guaranteed by the government. The national performance agreements confirm this trend of over-expensive construction, It limiting social housing and the policy of Constant rent increases make overpriced housing the normThe consequences are that cities are increasingly become an amusement park for the rich, with neighborhoods and shops that are only interesting for them.

Collective struggle for lower rents: take action!

Do you live in social housing or non-independent living space (such as rooms)?

Are you already barely able to pay the rent, while your landlord runs away with a large part of your income? Has your landlord not done any maintenance for years, but you have to pay more every year for reduced living pleasure?

The action campaign We Refuse the Rent Increase fights for lower rents and rent freeze of at least five years of all rents. Using a simple roadmap tenants will massively refuse the upcoming rent increase. By collectively refusing the rent increase and taking action, we will form a fist for lower rents, freedom and security of existence. Let the government tackle the housing crisis with structural investments in public housing instead of burdening tenants with this unilaterally!

Register now for the 2025 refusal action to refuse the rent increase using our step-by-step plan.
The Bond Precaire Woonvormen(BPW) supports the action campaign We Refuse the Rent Increase. We cannot do this without your support, solidarity and (active) contribution. Do you want build along at grassroots movement and fighting together for lower rents, freedom and security of existence for everyone? Become a member of the BPW now