No more house owners, not even the middle class

Belgians are born with a brick in their stomach, is what we always say over here. Belgium has the most house owners, in percentages, of the entire European Union. But there is coming an end to that. Because the housing market is imploding. Here's the explanation:

Because of the already very dense population per square kilometre, lots of mayors want to stop building houses and appartments, to keep some green in their community. Which is of course a very noble cause. But this means, less and less houses get built, and the population still keeps growing. Mostly due to migration.

A second reason is the law that older houses that get bought have an obligation to get renovated to become more energy efficient. Which costs a lot of money. And a lot of young couples just don't have the funds to do that, especially because the renovation needs to happen within 5 years of buying the property.

Which brings us to the rental market, where there is also a plunge in available rental houses, because the same renovation obligation is applied to those houses. So a lot of house owners pull their house from the rental market, because the rent they will receive won't way up with the cost of the renovation.

Higher house prices, higher rental prices

Fact is that the last 5 years, it has become almost impossible for young starters to buy a house. An average downpayment of 90000 EUR is needed these days, just to get a loan for a house. And very little people in their twenties and thirties have that kind of money.
On the other hand the rental market is shrinking, so the rental prices are surging. To the point that renting a house cost almost the same of the monthly payment of mortgage.

In short, Belgium has a lot of work to do to make housing affordable again.
How? That is not up to me, but putting a stop to illegal migration could be a start. And making the renovation obligations less strict would help too...

Sincerely,

Pele23

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