The Dutch Mortgage Funding Company (DMFCO) has said it can accommodate at least €1bn in additional investments in residential mortgages next year as demand surges.

Since the DMFCO launched its Munt Hypotheken product a year ago, the asset manager had received €5bn in commitments, €3bn of which has been issued as mortgages, according to Marieke Hut, partner and director of business development.

She said the DMFCO expected to issue at least another €3bn of mortgages in 2016.

To date, seven Dutch pension funds, including PGB and the large metal schemes PME and PMT, have made commitments, ranging from €100m to €2bn.

According to Hut, the DMFCO is currently in talks with a number of other pension funds keen to participate in the Dutch mortgage fund.

She attributed Dutch schemes’ interest in the DMFCO’s proposition partly to its “extensive governance and low cost”.

“We involve our clients closely in our policy, and we can keep costs low, as we are a young and efficient organisation,” she said.

“Moreover, we are independent and focus solely on mortgages.”

She said the DMFCO’s Dutch mortgage fund was currently providing 200 basis points of additional returns relative to government bonds.

She also confirmed that the fund would continue to focus on Dutch pension funds, “as we have developed our proposition together with our first clients”.

This means, for example, that the vehicle will target long-term mortgages with a fixed rate.

“Having only pension funds as like-minded investors also allows us to be flexible,” Hut said.

Most of the participating pension funds have increased their commitments considerably, with PMT and PGB doubling their initial investments to €2bn and €1bn, respectively.

Hut said investor demand had increased much faster than the DMFCO expected, and that it now anticipated a total committed amount of approximately €10bn by the end of 2017.

The DMFCO estimates the annual market for Dutch mortgage investments in the Netherlands at €60bn.

It said it expected institutional investors to play an increasingly important role in the Dutch real estate market, as banks became more reluctant to issue mortgages.

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