Wooden houses are gaining ground but won't solve the housing shortage
The share of new wooden residential construction in the Netherlands has grown significantly due to sustainability mandates and an emphasis on industrial prefabrication. However, experts caution that limited production capacity and high costs mean that timber building alone cannot resolve the country's persistent housing shortage.
The share of new wooden homes in the Netherlands has tripled from 2 percent in 2020 to 6.8 percent in 2025. Driven by stricter CO2 emission regulations, the sector is increasingly adopting mass timber construction, where load-bearing walls and floors are made from wood. Government objectives, including the 30-30-30-plan, encourage biobased building methods and industrial prefabrication to address the ongoing housing crisis. This industrial approach allows components to be manufactured in factories and assembled on-site, which helps mitigate labor shortages in the construction industry.
Despite these advancements, experts like Michel van Eekert and Arjan Habraken warn that timber construction is not a complete solution for the chronic housing shortage. While factory-based building reduces waste and energy consumption, current production capacity remains insufficient to meet the target of 100,000 new homes per year. High transport costs for imported wood and the limited scale of specialized manufacturing facilities present significant hurdles to scaling up production before 2030.
Based on reporting by nu. Translated and condensed by LocalHeadlines.
