Brussels mayor Philippe Close and Town Planning councilor Ans Persoonshave approved an action plan to stop the development of illegal Airbnb in the city center.

Airbnb has become a business. In some cases, it is no longer an individual who rents his room – which was the basis of Airbnb spirit – but professionals who buy whole houses or several apartments and then rent them on tourist rental platforms. “Airbnbs […] are often run by professionals who buy a large number of properties and rent them through the site. Some neighborhoods are left with fewer and fewer apartments available to rent and the balance between residents and tourists is threatened”, Persoons continues.

The Brussels Region has around 7400 properties advertised on the Airbnb website. The City of Brussels is the most concerned commune with 2,200 properties. Moreover, the authorities say 1,600 of these properties are available exclusively through the site. In certain downtown neighborhoods, particularly those in the Grand Place, Bourse, Saint-Jacques, Saint-Géry and Dansaert, this proportion is creating competition for residential housing.

“We want to avoid becoming like Paris or Amsterdam, where the website is even more popular. We don’t want just tourists living in the city center. Brussels residents should still be able to find housing in any neighborhood at an affordable price”, says Ans Persoonss, adding that most Airbnb rentals are illegal and not in line with the Brussels ordinance on tourist accommodation.

Another problem is that Airbnb harms the urban network. Tourists are rarely aware of the days of trash pickup and leave their garbage in the streets anytime. In addition, Airbnb leads to a degradation of the social bond between neighbors but also between inhabitants and traders, as the College of the City of Brussels considers.

The City of Brussels has therefore approved an action plan to stem the uncontrolled development of tourist rentals. This plan aims to punish illegal tourist accommodation via a Control Cell and to tax accommodation as unoccupied property.

“We want to put pressure on homeowners to put their property on the conventional rental market. By increasing the controls, we want to put back 1,000 dwellings on the rental market by the end of the legislature”, concludes the Town Planning councilor.

“We had a great victory a few weeks ago. The owner of a large building in the UNESCO area decided, because the pressure of the new tax for well vacant, to hand over 15 apartments that were rented on the Airbnb platform on the traditional rental market”, announced Philippe Close.

The post Brussels’ war against illegal Airbnbs appeared first on Brussels Express.

The first thing to know is that there are several options when it comes to deciding which kind of accommodation suits you best.

Student housing. In case you are moving to Brussels for studying you can decide to apply for a student room in the campus of your university. Every university on its website has a section with all the necessary information about accommodation on campus and other houses facilities they provide. The price will depend on the university, but usually, student accommodations are cheaper and, therefore, very requested. So, be sure to send your application as soon as possible.

Room in a shared flat. Another option is to rent a room in a “coloc” (shared flat). This is the perfect solution if you don’t want to live alone and you wish to create your little family in Brussels. Anyway, every shared flat is different, with its own lifestyle and requirements. That is why normally you will have a small chat with the other roommates before being accepted. Also, the number of roommates can be very different, it can go from two up to seventeen people. After student houses, rooms in shared flats are usually the cheapest option. The price for a furnished room is normally between 380 and 480 euros, charges excluded.

A studio. If you prefer to live alone, then you should look for a studio, a small apartment for a single person. The prices are going to be a bit higher, but – hey – no one that steals your food or makes parties when you have to wake up early the next morning. For a furnished studio you pay on average between 500 to 750 euros, charges excluded.

In order to find a room or a studio, the best way is to do it through some Facebook groups. Here are some examples:

Bxl à Louer

Brussels room and flats to rent 

Rooms in Brussels (Expats, Interns, Erasmus, and Students) 

Wonen in Brussels

Recherche Kot/apartment/colocation à Bruxelles

There also some websites that can help you, such as:

Brik

MyKot 

Spotahome 

An apartment. If you are a group of friends looking for accommodation together, a good option could be to directly look for an apartment. You can always find it in the Facebook groups linked before, but the best option is the platform Immoweb, where you can personalize your research with your budget and special requests. In case, you can also decide to call on a real estate.

Keep in mind that not all landlords accept flat sharing, so always be sure to ask beforehand.

Other issues to keep in mind.

The deposit. When you start your renting contract you are going to be asked to pay a deposit. The amount of the deposit can be between one and three months of rent. When you will enter your accommodation it will be drafted a document that will state the conditions of the location. If once you leave the conditions are the same, you will receive the entire amount back. If instead, the location suffered any damage, then the landlord will deduct from the entire amount the sum correspondent to the harm. For the deposit, it is safer to create a blocked bank account, than will be unblocked once the contract is over, rather than give it in cash to the landlord.

Furnished, or unfurnished, that is the question. All kind of accommodations – rooms, studios, apartments – can be furnished or unfurnished. Rooms tend to be furnished, but, usually, apartments aren’t. If you are staying for a short term, of course, to find something furnished is the best option. The rent can be a bit higher, but your home will be ready from the day you arrive and you will not have any extra expenses. On the other hand, unfurnished houses or rooms can be a bit cheaper, but you have to take into account the initial expense for the furniture and the extra physical and mental effort it requires. However, it has to be said that in Brussels is really easy to find cheap second-hand furniture. You can go to second-hand shops, such as Les Petits Riens, or have a look to market place on Facebook. Moreover, in Brussels, there are many flea markets (brocantes). For example, at Marolles, in Place Jeu de Ball, there is a flea market every day until 2 p.m. and every neighborhood periodically organizes its own flea market. Last but not least, always have a look when you are walking in the streets: it is common to find good furniture for free.

Also, there is always the possibility that the person that is leaving the room or the apartment will directly sell you at least part of the furniture.

Scams. Unfortunately, scams are a reality in Brussels. Here are some tips on how to avoid it. The easiest victims of scam are those who can’t be in Brussels during the searching of the house. Of course, it is not always possible, but the best way to avoid scams would be to find a weekend in which book all the visits for the houses you are interested in or arrive a few days before the date you want to start renting in order to sign the contract in person and meet the landlord.

If it is not possible, here it goes the first gold rule: if something is “too good to be true”, then it’s probably not true, it’s a scam. If landlords must be reached electronically because they are in a foreign country doing “something”, and are unable to meet you (even for giving you the keys of the house), it is very likely that it is a scam. Don’t take any documents or ID they might send you as a guarantee, they might be false or stolen. Check the name of the landlord on the Facebook groups, if he has already scammed someone his name might appear. Also, check with Google Images the originality of every picture he might send you of the house if the house doesn’t exist he has to have taken from somewhere.

The post How-to-rent-in-Brussels guide for students and young workers appeared first on Brussels Express.

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.

 

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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.

The post Are rent prices still going up in Brussels? appeared first on Brussels Express.

We have good news. The Union of Tenants provides you with the different types of models of lease contracts.

In order to make the provisions a bit clearer to everyone and to avoid unexpected and awful situations, the Union of Tenants has made public the six models of contracts you might be subject to if you live in Brussels. Those sorts of model contracts are in line with the revision of the provisions on leasing which entered into force at the beginning of the year.

Slight changes have affected the students, the flat-shares, as well as the provisions with regard to discrimination. If you are a student, if you live with room-mates or if you aim to find a new main residence, the contracts will be different.

It is then worth having a look at them, before being trapped or being committed to comply with rules you don’t necessarily have to comply with.

The post Housing: six rental contracts come into effect in Brussels appeared first on Brussels Express.

The shift from property-owning to renting took hold in post-WW2 western Europe as more people moved to the cities for work. This shift has continued as countries become less agricultural and more urban, and renting offers newcomers a way to live and work in the city without a loan or large deposit.

These changed attitudes towards homeowning can be seen throughout western Europe as countries like Germany and Austria have over 40% renting population, and countries like the UK, New Zealand, and Finland having a constant and significant increase in their renter population every year from 2010 to 2015.

However, Belgium’s rent share has remained constant over the past 5 years and has only increased by just 0.7%, with the current percentage of 28.6% flatlining in 2015.

Although renting is on the rise in many western European countries, Switzerland is currently the only population with a renting majority (56.6%), but with a growing trend across the continent, many countries including Belgium, may start to follow.

Source: Rent Café Blog

The post Most People in Belgium Still Prefer to Own Their Home appeared first on Brussels Express.