House prices in neighbouring Belgian province up 20% in 2021
Real estate prices in Luxembourg’s neighbouring Belgian province have jumped by more than a fifth between 2020 and 2021, a report has said, as the ripple effect of the Grand Duchy's housing shortage is felt across the border.
In Belgium’s Luxembourg province the price of buying a home went up by 21% in 2021 compared to the previous year, the country’s federation of notaries, Fednot, said in a study published on Friday. That increase was far above the average rise nationally last year, with the cost of a property in Belgium going up by 14% in 2021.
In Arlon, the capital of the Luxembourg province, house prices went up by 14%, Fednot said, with the average cost of a house in the area rising to €219,000 and the price of an apartment climbing to €190,000.
More than 70,000 Luxembourg citizens already live in the neighbouring countries of Belgium, France and Germany, with the top destination being France, which houses 28,000 inhabitants from the Grand Duchy.
The average price of a house in or around Luxembourg City stands at €1.35 million, according to the country's official statistics agency Statec. The further away one chooses to live from the capital the cheaper real estate generally gets, but the national average for a house is still around €900,000.
House prices rose by more than 17% at the end of 2020 compared with the same three-month period the previous year, with empty flats and plots contributing to the country's ballooning property prices by reducing the potential supply.
A staggering 82% of voters said in a poll released in November that they were "greatly worried" about access to affordable housing. That was virtually unchanged from a previous finding in June, according to surveys carried out by the TNS Ilres polling firm for Luxembuger Wort and RTL.
According to multiple studies by different research institutes in Luxembourg, the housing market in Luxembourg is dominated by just a handful of owners and developers.
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