Flanders was the region that saw the biggest jump in house and apartment prices in 2023, although figures show that property price inflation cooled last year across Belgium.
Latest real estate figures from Statbel, the Belgian statistics office, show that the average price of a terraced or semi-detached home across the country rose by 2% last year to €260,000. Meanwhile, the average price for a detached house rose by 2.5% to €369,000, and the average cost of an apartment increased by 3.9% to €239,000.
While property prices increased last year, they grew at a much smaller rate than in 2022, when semi-detached/terraced house prices rose by 8.5%, detached homes by 6.8%, and apartments by 5%.
Property prices in Belgium have not fallen far from historic highs seen during the Covid-19 pandemic, but the real estate market has cooled recently as buyers grapple with higher mortgage rates and a generally difficult economic climate.
Regional breakdown
Flanders saw the biggest increases in 2023, and was the only region where prices increased across all property categories. In the Flemish region, the average price of a semi-detached or terraced home rose by 4.6% in 2023, to €298,120. The cost of an average detached house surpassed the €400,000 mark, rising by 3.8% to €410,000, while the average apartment price increased by 4.3% to €245,000.
Brussels remains the most expensive region in Belgium to buy a home. The average price of a semi-detached or terraced property rose by 0.8% last year to €495,000, while an apartment costs an average of €256,500, also up 0.8%. While the average cost of a detached home in the Brussels-Capital Region fell by 18.9% last year, it is still the most expensive kind of home that can be bought anywhere in the country, costing an average of €932,500.
The cheapest homes can be found in Wallonia, where the average price for a semi-detached or terraced home was €176,000 last year, up 0.6% on 2022. A detached home in Wallonia cost €290,000 on average in 2023, unchanged from the previous year, while the average price of an apartment rose by 2.9% to €180,000.
The most expensive province in Flanders was Flemish Brabant, while the cheapest last year was Limburg, and in the Walloon region the most expensive province was Walloon Brabant, with the cheapest being Hainaut.
Most expensive municipalities
Looking at individual municipalities across the entire country, the most expensive place to buy a house in Belgium is in Ixelles in the Brussels-Capital Region, where the median price last year was €827,500. The cheapest place to buy a house was in Hastière in Wallonia, where the average price was €91,000.
In terms of apartments, the most expensive municipality in Belgium is Knokke-Heist in Flanders, with a median price of €555,000. Meanwhile the cheapest apartments in the country can be found in La Calamine in Wallonia, where prices are €60,000 on average.
