Income, buying costs and what a budget buys

Affordability

How many years of a commune's median tax declaration its median home asks, what buying costs against renting, and what a budget buys where.

Price to income

Years of a tax declaration

The median asking price of a commune's homes divided by the median income on a tax declaration there. A declaration is one person or one couple filing together, so it sits nearer one salary than one household: the price-to-income multiple usually quoted divides by a household's whole income and comes out around half of this. Both are medians of a place, so the ratio says how far the local market sits from the local purse, not whether any one household can buy.

The notary's statement

Rent or buy

What it costs to buy the median home in each region once the registration duty and the notary are paid, set out the way a Belgian notary itemises the bill, and what the same money would have rented. Change the price, the deposit, the rate and the term; the statement and the figure below follow.

Region

Type

Asking price, €

Deposit, %

Rate, % a year

Term, years

Sole main home

The bank lends against the price only, so the duty and the notary are paid in cash on top of the deposit. The price opens at the median asking price of a in , , and resets to it when the region or the type changes.

Registration duty. ; otherwise . ; otherwise . ; . The Brussels exemption applies only when the price is at most €600,000. The percentages are the mainstream rule for a private buyer of an existing home; renovation rebates, portability of duty paid earlier, protected monuments, social housing, professional buyers and the Flemish energy renovation rate that ended in 2024 are not applied.

Notary and deed. The statutory notary fee is the same in the three regions and degressive, from 4.56 percent on the first €7,500 down to 0.057 percent above €250,095. Between €150,000 and €700,000 it is within a few percent of the linear approximation used here, €1,500 plus 0.9 percent of the price, to which 21 percent VAT is added; deed, registry and search costs are taken as a flat €1,200 and in practice run €800 to €1,500 depending on the mortgage deed. At the estimate is .

Mortgage and exclusions. The repayment is a fixed-rate annuity with monthly compounding on the price less the deposit; duty and fees are never financed. New build is bought with 21 percent VAT on the building instead of registration duty and is not covered. Figure 2.2 compares outlays only: the buyer's equity, the home's resale value and the renter's returns on the money not spent are all left out, so it is a statement of cash, not of wealth.

Budget

What a budget buys

The same sum buys very different homes across the eleven provinces. For each budget, the figure below reads the median habitable surface of the listings priced within 7.5 percent of it, and the one after it reads how much of each province's market lies at or under it.

Houses

Apartments

Within reach means an asking price at or under the budget, before duty, notary and any negotiation. Budgets are nominal euros over the to window and are not adjusted for inflation. The surface figures of Figure 3.1 describe the listings asking within 7.5 percent either side of the budget, so neighbouring budgets overlap a little from up; a province and type with fewer than such listings is hatched. Province and Belgium figures are medians over listings, not averages over provinces; Brussels is its own province and region and appears once.