The real estate market has experienced very marked activity and fluctuations since the outbreak of the health crisis. It is sometimes difficult to clearly determine the dynamics according to regions and segments (purchase, rental, residential or commercial, etc.). To try to see more clearly, the real estate franchisor We Invest has collaborated with PriceHubble, a specialist in digital solutions for estimating, consulting and real estate analysis in Europe for professionals.
“In total, We Invest and PriceHubble analyzed 11,086 for sale advertisements and 20,044 rental advertisements as part of this study of purchase price and rent trends on the Belgian market”explains We Invest in a press release. “The analysis covers data from all real estate ads published online in seven cities (Brussels, Charleroi, Ghent, Liège, Louvain, Mons and Namur) between January 1, 2021 and June 30, 2022. The goal? To assess , in real time and with high precision, the current dynamics on the apparent market (of displayed prices).”
Results ? “Up and down, the analysis of our data has shown very clear and very clear dynamics for Belgium in the first half of 2022”sums up Stéphane Muhikira, key account manager for Belgium at PriceHubble.
Crossover between Charleroi and Brussels
Under the magnifying glass, the city with the strongest fluctuations is… Charleroi. Between the first quarter of 2021 and that of 2022, the price per square meter (selling price of the property divided by its living area) increased by 20%, and the selling price by 15.3%. On the other hand, between the first and second quarters of 2022, the price per square meter fell by… 11.1% and by 13.9% for sales. Conversely, Bruxelles recorded a sharp drop in the price per square meter between the first quarter of 2021 and that of 2022 (-6.7% for the m² and -5.5% for sale). Then prices started to rise once more in the second quarter of 2022, with in particular an increase of 9.1% per square meter.
What regarding rentals? “When it comes to rents, some cities like Thinking et Namur very stable between 2021 and 2022 (respectively +1.16% and +0.67% change), others show a moderate increase in rents (such as Louvain with +2.35%). It is once once more to Bruxelles that the situation is changing the most: while tenants have indeed been able to benefit from a drop of -8.3% between 2021 and 2022, in the first half of 2022, rents in Brussels have rebounded by +9.1%”, note the authors of the report. It is however to Mons the increase is the strongest, with an increase of 9.6%.
Residential sector still in real estate bubble mode
Pour We Invest, “The situation remains under tension on the new residential real estate market, where we are seeing a slowdown”. A phenomenon due in particular to the rise in the price of construction materials and delivery times, “always longer on construction sites”. “Added to these factors are the rising cost of energy, inflation and rising interest rates, which are putting the real estate sector to the test, particularly the residential sector which is ‘overheating’ and continues to develop in a ‘housing bubble'”warns the real estate franchisor.
We Invest and PriceHubble promise to renew these probes of the Belgian real estate landscape in the future. “Analyzing data directly from real estate ads allows We Invest to have a real-time view of the market. This study is therefore extremely useful for identifying upward or downward trends almost instantly, in an ultra-precise way”confirms Raphaël Mathieu, CEO of We Invest. “Of course, we always insist that it is the displayed prices that are analyzed. They therefore do not take into account the negotiations that take place between the seller and the end buyer. The calculations of the data from the advertisements allow us, however, to take the pulse of the market at instant ‘t’.”
