House prices in the Netherlands are now almost back at their pre-crisis levels, the Dutch real estate agency association NVM said on Thursday.

The average price for a home is now €248,000, which is 20% up on the low point reached in 2013 and just 2% below the record high recorded in August 2008.

In Amsterdam, where the recovery started first, house prices rose 23% last year, taking the average price of a city apartment to €328,000.

The shortage of property in Amsterdam led to a 36% drop in the number of houses on the market in the final quarter of last year. ‘First-time buyers are as good as excluded from the market,’ NVM chairman Ger Jaarsma told the Financieele Dagblad.

The regional differences are extremely wide. For example, €248,000 will buy a 40 square metre apartment on the outskirts of Amsterdam but a 110 square metre terraced home in Amersfoort or a detached home with a large garden in rural parts of Groningen, Drenthe and Limburg.

The NVM expects house prices to rise by a further 5% in 2017.