About 73% of people who live in a rented property would like to become owners, according to a survey of 1,600 tenants in Belgium conducted by the real estate expert group CBRE.
In more than half of the cases (53%), it's the amount of equity required that prevents them from doing so.
“The problem for many tenants is not so much the monthly mortgage burden, but the limited loan-to-value ratio that is allowed. With rising property prices, we expect the number of tenants to continue to increase,” said Sébastien Verstraete of CBRE.
This disincentive to buy makes the rental profile of Belgians a bit special: they stay in their homes for a relatively long time, on average 11.4 years.
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“This has a lot to do with the age and location of the tenants,” said Verstraete. “The intended rental periods are obviously shorter in the cities and among young people. But a large proportion of Belgian tenants are now older and no longer have the ambition or desire to move.”
After a year marked by the coronavirus pandemic and the measures that accompanied it, tenants are more often than last year prepared to pay more for an outdoor space.
One-third of those working from home also said that their rented accommodation was not suitable for this.
When asked how many days they would like to work from home, 67% of Belgian tenants indicated a maximum of 1 or 2 days per week.
CBRE is an American commercial real estate services and investment firm, and the largest commercial real estate services company in the world.
The Brussels Times
