No more goods that sell at any price regardless of their condition. Since the beginning of 2022, the number of transactions has been declining. A return to normal marked by high interest rates and rising energy bills. And since the start of the energy crisis, the number one criterion has been the consumption of the property, its level of energy performance (measured by the EPB certificate).
Joëlle was looking for an almost zero energy apartment, she had to fall back on a slightly lower energy performance but she found: “I found it in Waterloo with a PEB B, it was important for me because it was an investment and I think the tenants are also slowly starting to look in recent months for properties where they have lower bills. “.
When potential buyers see that the energy performance is low (at level E, F or G, on a scale from A to G), they hesitate, because they know that they will have to do some work.
“The energy criterion is really one of the first criteria for buyers, this was not at all the case several years ago. On the contrary, there was a lot of talk about houses to be renovated. Now, with the increase in energy and in addition the increase in raw materials and construction materials, well we see that now people are looking rather at a smaller property but with better energy performance”points out Benoît Bulthé, real estate agent in Waterloo.
How will the middle class do?
This is also evident in the banking sector. Since January 1, 2021, banks have been required to ask their customers for the PEB certificate of the property that will be pledged as part of the mortgage loan. If a building has poor energy quality, banks will sometimes consider that the building is sold too expensive, so they will ask buyers for more equity.
The blow of energy weighs more and more heavily for candidates for purchase or renovation. “How is the middle class going to do? From a certain point in time to continue to pay the mortgage loan, continue to pay the very high energy bills on energy-intensive properties, because they may not be able to afford that ‘a good that is in this category’asks Caroline Lejeune, the president of the Federation of French-speaking real estate agents (Fedria).
Energy-intensive buildings are therefore likely to remain on the market for a long time… And to see their price drop. What allow potential buyers to have, perhaps, the means to renovate them.
About two-thirds of the housing stock in Belgium has an EPB certificate which does not exceed the letter E due to their dilapidation.
Improving the energy efficiency of the Belgian residential building stock by 2050 will cost between 250 and 400 billion euros, according to an estimate by the National Bank of Belgium. To achieve the fixed PEB objective, the amount to be paid for the renovation of a house will be between 50,000 and 80,000 euros. Still according to the BNB, 3% of the residential stock, or 17,000 houses, should be subject to extensive renovation each year.