The Income Era Split: Why Internationals Get the Broken Rentals

Cushman & Wakefield's September 2026 research report, "The Income Era," lays out something I've been watching happen on the ground in the Dutch rental market for a while now. Institutional residential investors aren't just adjusting strategy — they're splitting into two completely different animals.

On one side, you've got long-term holders. These are the investors sitting on newer, efficient stock — post-2019 builds with low operating costs, decent energy performance, and stable tenants. They're playing the income game. On the other side, you've got value-creation sellers who are liquidating older, mid-market rentals because the math doesn't work anymore.

This isn't a cyclical blip. It's structural. And the consequences for who actually ends up living in these properties — especially internationals — are ugly.

Here's what the data actually says. For post-2019 Dutch residential assets, only 18.9% of income gets eaten by operating costs. For pre-1970 properties? That jumps to 29.6%. Net operating income per square meter is 54% higher in newer homes.

The most efficient portfolios in the Dutch market achieved an income return of 3.7%. The least efficient? Just 2.0%. That's nearly a doubling of income return just from being in the right stock.

Cushman & Wakefield's analysis shows something even more striking: being in the most efficient cost quartile matters more for returns than being in the right country. Asset selection trumps market selection. So if you're an international investor buying at scale in the Netherlands, you're not cherry-picking — you're getting whatever's available in bulk. And what's available in bulk is rarely the good stuff.

The efficient, income-generating assets are tightly held by domestic investors and specialist operators who have local knowledge, operational infrastructure, and relationships. They don't sell unless they have to.

International capital faces structural barriers. The supply of standing, investment-grade multifamily assets is limited outside a few markets. In APAC, 85% of investors expect to increase allocations to Living, but the pace of institutionalization is constrained by supply. The same dynamic plays out in the Netherlands — there's more demand for efficient stock than there is efficient stock to buy.

So what happens? International investors end up acquiring large portfolios of older, less efficient assets that local players are offloading. These are the buildings with higher maintenance costs, worse energy labels, and tenants cycling through more frequently. In APAC, 73% of investors are now considering joint ventures, repositioning, or change-of-use strategies, and 56% prefer to manage portfolios through local partners. That's not a sign of strength — it's a sign that internationals are forced to buy, fix, and reposition broken assets because they can't access the stabilized, efficient portfolios.

For renters, this means the institutional landlord owning your building probably doesn't have the local infrastructure to maintain it well. They're relying on a local partner who may or may not care about your leaky faucet.

Here's where this gets real for people actually looking for housing in Amsterdam, Utrecht, Rotterdam, or Eindhoven. The mid-market rentals — the segment where most internationals end up — are exactly the ones being stripped out and sold off.

The long-term holders, sitting on efficient post-2019 stock, are targeting Dutch-registered tenants with long horizons. They want stability. They want tenants who are registered at the Gemeente, have a BSN, and are likely to stay for years. If you've just arrived from abroad on a two-year contract, you're not their ideal tenant — and frankly, the stock they control is often priced above what most internationals can afford anyway.

Meanwhile, the value-creation sellers are liquidating the older mid-market stock. These are the €1,200–€1,800/month apartments in pre-2000 buildings across Rotterdam, Den Haag, or Groningen that used to be the sweet spot for internationals. They're being sold off as individual units or broken up, which means they're leaving the rental market entirely or being repositioned into higher rent brackets.

What's left for internationals is the poorly maintained stock that institutional investors are milking for yield before selling. The buildings with D or E energy labels. The apartments where the heating doesn't work properly, the roof leaks, and nobody's investing in improvements because the owner's plan is to sell in 18 months.

The Dutch regulatory environment is accelerating this split. The Woningwet reforms and the huurcommissie's expanded jurisdiction over mid-market rentals (the new capped segment) have made older, less efficient stock even less attractive to hold long-term.

If you're an institutional investor sitting on pre-1970 buildings in Amsterdam or Utrecht, you're facing rising maintenance costs, pressure to improve energy performance under EU and Dutch sustainability rules, and a huurcommissie that can force rent reductions. The WOZ value of your property might be climbing, but your net operating income is shrinking because costs are eating you alive.

So you sell. You liquidate the mid-market portfolio and either reinvest in newer stock or exit the residential sector entirely. The buyer is often an international investor who doesn't fully understand the regulatory exposure — or doesn't care because they're planning to reposition and flip.

For renters, this means your landlord might be an offshore entity that bought your building as part of a distressed portfolio and has no intention of fixing the structural issues. Good luck getting them to respond when the huurcommissie says they need to lower your rent. They'll sell first.

If you're hunting on Pararius or Kamernet, you're not seeing the efficient stock. Those listings are dominated by the older, mid-market apartments that are cycling through tenants faster because the conditions are deteriorating.

Funda has some of the better-quality rentals, but those are often managed directly by owners or small-scale landlords who can afford to be selective. The institutional stock that's being held long-term rarely shows up on public platforms at all — it's managed through internal waiting lists or housing corporations.

So the internationals who are searching on the open market are already filtered into the worst segment of the market. They're seeing the apartments that efficient landlords didn't want to hold. The ones being milked for yield before liquidation.

This is why speed matters so much in the current market. The decent mid-market rentals that do hit Pararius or Kamernet get snapped up in hours — sometimes minutes. Not because the market is inherently that fast, but because the supply of livable mid-market rentals has been structurally reduced by the investor split.

First, understand that the market is not uniform. The apartment you're viewing on Kamernet might look fine in photos, but if it's owned by an institutional investor in value-creation mode, the maintenance is probably deferred. Ask when the building was last renovated. Ask about the energy label. If it's D or below, you're looking at higher utility costs and a landlord who has no incentive to invest.

Second, target smaller landlords. The two-strategy split primarily affects institutional stock. A private landlord with five apartments in Rotterdam is not part of the Cushman & Wakefield bifurcation. They're more likely to maintain their property because they actually live nearby and care about its long-term value.

Third, check the huurcommissie's huurprijscheck before signing anything. If your apartment falls in the regulated segment and the rent is above the liberalisatiegrens, you might have leverage — but only if your landlord plans to stick around. If they're in sell-off mode, they'll just terminate your lease and sell vacant.

Finally, be fast. The good mid-market rentals exist, but they're rare and they disappear quickly. Setting up alerts across multiple platforms — which is literally what we built House Hunter to do — is the only realistic way to catch them before they're gone.

The bifurcation isn't going away. If anything, it'll deepen as sustainability regulations tighten and the cost gap between efficient and inefficient stock widens. Internationals who understand this dynamic have a real advantage. Those who don't will keep ending up in the broken rentals.