Are rent prices still going up in Brussels?
According to the Regional Rental Observatory, the average monthly rent in Brussels in 2017 was 700 euros.
The 2017 study by the Regional Rental Observatory aimed to show a picture of the Brussels rental market. It was completed between May 1 and November 30, 2017. The survey focused on 4500 rental housing units in Brussels, which represent 1.5% of the total rental stock in Brussels.
50% of the tenants pay a rent of below 660 euros, 25% pay less than 500 and 25% pay over 800 euros. “The rent is dependent in the type of the housing, the number of bedrooms and the living area of the housing and it varies depending on the intrinsic characteristics of the property.”
After 15 years of generalized rent growth, in 2017 the prices stagnated.
If one considers that the share reserved for rent shouldn’t exceed 25 to 30% of the budget of the household, the figures show that, “a greater part of the local population should have access to the rental housing market, but this proportion of households has been decreasing since 2004,” says the author of the survey, Marie-Laurence De Keersmaecker.
The Observatory’s study highlights that the housing surface area has been declining in recent years. In 2016, the average surface are was 76 m², and 73 m² in 2017. Meanwhile, the comfort level of the properties has improved in the last 20 years, with 96% of the housings having a bathroom and/ or central heating. Another improvement is the energy performance of the buildings.
