Heterogeneous impact of macroeconomic and fiscal variables on real estate prices in Belgium ?
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- For most people, the home they live in is the largest financial asset they will ever own, and in Belgium this is especially true: more than seven in ten Belgians live in a home they own (71.9% in 2023; Eurostat, 2024). For the majority of Belgian households, property is not merely a place to live but the cornerstone of their savings and their principal investment vehicle, often representing the greater part of their net wealth. As a result, the price of residential real estate reaches far beyond the property market itself: it shapes household prosperity and inequality, determines whether the next generation can become owners, and bears directly on the stability of the banking system that finances home purchases. Understanding what drives housing prices in Belgium is, for these reasons, a question of first-order economic and social importance, and a central one for anyone investing in Belgian real estate. This thesis examines how taxation, economic conditions and population dynamics shape residential real estate prices in Belgium between 2010 and 2025, distinguishing houses from apartments throughout. These effects, however, are far from uniform. It finds that the taxes levied when a property changes hands rank among the most powerful price determinants, weighing most heavily on the single-family segment, while short-run price movements are driven above all by construction and input costs and by financing conditions. Apartments behave as the more financially sensitive segment, reacting to interest rates and household purchasing power, whereas houses absorb the bulk of tax and construction-cost pass-through; regionally, Brussels is the most exposed to macroeconomic swings. Taken together, the results show that the fiscal and macroeconomic drivers of Belgian housing prices operate unevenly: their strength depends on whether the dwelling is a house or an apartment and, on the region, concerned, so that no single, market-wide effect adequately describes how taxation and the economy shape prices. These findings carry direct implications for the design of housing taxation and for real estate investment decisions across Belgium's regions.