With rare access to a high-performing European land market, global investors are moving quickly to secure positions in the Netherlands—before competition intensifies.
What do real estate investors in Dubai, New York, and Brussels have in common? Increasingly, their sights are set on an unexpected place: the Netherlands.
Once off-limits to non-EU buyers, the Dutch land market has quietly opened its gates to international investors—and the response has been swift.
Until recently, regulatory preferences and planning policy made it difficult for investors outside the Netherlands, Germany, or Belgium to directly purchase land. That’s now changing.
For the first time, qualified international buyers can legally access and acquire parcels of land in designated Dutch regions, creating a rare opportunity to enter a high-performing market at an institutional-grade level.
This has triggered growing interest from buyers in global real estate hubs—many of whom are looking to rebalance portfolios with stable, inflation-protected assets that sit outside overheated urban markets.
Investors are motivated by several converging factors:
Consistent performance: Dutch land outpaced the European average with 11.5% price growth in 2024.
Strong underlying fundamentals: A scarcity of developable land, growing infrastructure needs, and favorable planning policy all support long-term value.
Euro-denominated diversification: For dollar or dirham-based investors, land in the Netherlands provides a hard asset hedge in a politically and economically stable EU country.
Limited window of access: This is not a free-for-all. Select regions and parcels are available—but competition is expected to intensify as more investors enter.
Dubai-based family offices are diversifying into agricultural and transitional land zones to hedge against volatility in global commercial property. U.S.-based funds are pairing land buys with infrastructure or ESG-aligned strategies. European investors, especially in Belgium and Luxembourg, are expanding existing positions with cross-border efficiency.
In every case, the underlying thesis is the same: land in the Netherlands is no longer an overlooked asset—it’s an early-stage opportunity with long-term strategic value.
Feldwyn Group is a privately held real estate investment firm specializing in the acquisition, development, and management of premium land assets across Europe and Dubai.