Dear reader,
Various studies show that young families are finding it increasingly difficult to find their own home. In the latest Real Estate Barometer we see that the number of people under the age of thirty who bought their own house or apartment last year (29.3 percent) was lower than in 2022 (30.3 percent). This has a lot to do with the increased interest, which means that more monthly payments have to be made. In recent years, banks have also required an increasingly higher amount of their own contribution.
It is mainly people who buy their first home who feel the high mortgages. That is problematic. Firstly, because pensions in Belgium are relatively low. When you’re 65ste If you do not own your own home, it is extremely difficult to make ends meet. Because home ownership in Belgium is very high at 70 percent, attention is mainly focused on this group. Those who have to rent are often left out in the cold. It looks like interest rates will fall again during the course of the year. That would be good news: it would make things a little easier.
The Salary Compass, a large-scale study by Jobat.be, shows that the average Belgian earns 2,500 euros net per month. Due to automatic indexation, this is 20 percent more than three years ago, but it is still very problematic, especially for single people, to pay 1,000 euros or more for a mortgage loan. According to project developer Lorenzo Van Tornhaut, something could also be done about the high prices by building more and in a different way: “There are too many restrictions, and what people do build are houses in less well-located locations on the countryside: isolated, classic subdivisions.”
Those who do not have to worry about affordable housing are the richest families in our country. And that also applies to the following generations. They are increasingly succeeding in escaping inheritance tax by setting up private foundations. Of the 2,105 private foundations in our country, 517, or a quarter, are used for succession planning, according to research by The time and L’Echo. Belgian law stipulates that private foundations must pursue a “disinterested purpose”. But the law is so vague that there is a lot of room for interpretation. In the entire discussion about reforming inheritance tax, it should be ensured that these types of loopholes are closed.
No wonder that the inheritance tax, one of the most just taxes from a social point of view, is so hated. It is now mainly the middle class people who cannot do succession planning, who have to contribute much more in percentage terms than the millionaires and billionaires in our country.
You may have noticed it in recent weeks: if you search for a restaurant, shop or simply an address on Google, you can no longer automatically click through to Google Maps. That is not a bug, but it has everything to do with the new European rules to control the power of the big techcompanies to limit. The European Commission monitors the activities of Apple, Google and Meta very closely in order to prioritize their own products and services. It is now even threatening billions in fines. The result is that it is at the expense of ease of use.
Finally, bad news for the chocolate lovers among us: the cocoa price has risen to almost 10,000 euros per tonne, a fourfold increase in just one year. Cocoa has become even more expensive than copper. The cause of the price increase is a disappointing harvest. These will be expensive Easter eggs this year…
Until next week,
Dimitri Thijskens
Economics journalist
