House prices fall for second quarter in a row: Remarkable

The average price of a home in Belgium during the first quarter of this year by 0.5 percent compared with the end of last year. It is the second decline in a row, as is apparent from the vastgoedbarometer of the notarissenfederatie (Fednot). That notaries registered a record number of real estate transactions.

The average price of a house was in the final months of last year, with 1.3 percent, and now followed by a new decline of 0.5 percent. “A residential house now costs an average of about 5,000 euros less than the level that was reached in the third quarter of 2018," says Bart van Opstal of the federation of the notarial profession.

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After a sustained increase in property prices is such a stabilization striking. “Certainly in comparison with the sustained high demand for real estate. As demand increases, there would normally also the price to rise, learn the economic logic. That this does not happen, is remarkable and, therefore, is that stabilization still more. May collide, we are gradually reaching the limits of what the – mostly younger – buyers can handle in terms of ability to repay, which is a restraint on the speed of the price increases,” explains Van Opstal the stabilization.