Woluwe-Saint-Pierre has been named the most expensive place to buy a house in Brussels, while Koekelberg is the municipality with the cheapest houses in Belgium's capital city, according to newly released government data.
In particular, the median price of a house in Woluwe-Saint-Pierre is €725,000, up from €680,000 the year before. Ixelles was found to be the second most expensive Brussels municipality to buy a house in (median price €675,000), followed by Uccle (€670,000) and Woluwe-Saint-Lambert (€655,000).
Meanwhile, the median price of a house in Koekelberg is just €326,250 — less than half of the median house price in Woluwe-Saint-Pierre. Anderlecht and Molenbeek were found to be the joint second-and-third cheapest municipalities to purchase a home (median price €350,000).
Houses in Brussels were also found to be significantly more expensive relative to the rest of Belgium. The median price of a house in Brussels is now €490,000: 56% more than the median price of a house in Flanders (€315,000), and more than twice the cost of a house in Wallonia (€202,500).
Unreal increases?
Intriguingly, the study also noted that nominal house prices in Brussels increased at a slower rate than the national average last year, while house prices across Belgium grew slower than the overall inflation rate.
More specifically, the report found that Brussels house prices rose by 6.5% last year, compared to 9.6% nationally: significantly less than the country's annual inflation rate of 10.35%. This implies that, in real terms, house prices across Belgium actually fell by 0.75% last year, and by 3.85% in Brussels specifically. (The real price increase is calculated by subtracting the inflation rate from the nominal price increase.)
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Moreover, although the majority of Brussels municipalities registered a nominal (but not real) increase in median house prices, several municipalities recorded a nominal decrease as well: these included Ixelles (8.5% median nominal price decrease), Koekelberg (3.2%), and Jette (0.5%).
Meanwhile, the largest (nominal) median price increases were observed in the municipalities of Forest (17.8%), Ganshoren (15.9%), Berchem-Sainte-Agathe (13.9%) and Saint-Gilles (13.1%).