Last year, converting existing buildings such as old office spaces, former hospitals and schools created 13.000 homes. These homes account for 14 percent of all new homes in 2018, according to new research by Statistics Netherlands (CBS).

Repurposed houses in big Dutch cities

So, where can you find these buildings repurposed into homes? Well, a lot of them can be found in big Dutch cities. In Amsterdam, between 2012 and 2018, 6.835 new homes were built in buildings that were previously used for something else. In both Eindhoven and The Hague, over 4.000 newly converted homes entered the housing market.

Converted homes tend to be small, often (43 percent) less than 50m2. More than a quarter of these were between 50 and 75m2, however. A great amount (42 percent) were originally office buildings and a further 21 percent, approximately, were built in social real estate buildings like hospitals, schools and sports clubs. Another 12 percent used to be shops. The large majority of these homes are rentals.

Who lives in these houses?

According to CBS, 59 percent of these “transformation” houses built in 2018 are inhabited, and for the most part (61 percent) by single-person households and couples without children living at home (27 percent). Additionally, people living in these kinds of houses tend to be young, with 47 percent between the ages 18 and 27 and about a third being between 28 and 45 years old.

The fact that these homes can mostly be found in medium to large cities and mostly attract young, single-person households fits in with the idea that young adults head to cities to study, work or for the urban facilities.