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Ten-Year Belgium Office and Retail Markets with a Digression on Vacancy Modelling

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European Metropolitan Commercial Real Estate Markets

Part of the book series: Advances in Spatial Science ((ADVSPATIAL))

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Abstract

Publicly available data concerning the dynamics on the Belgian commercial real estate markets are scarce. This paper fills this void and collects data on an annual frequency on both the demand and the supply side of Belgian office and retail markets. We also provide information on the transactions, the prices and the rents. In order to interpret the data in the right institutional setting, some organizational aspects are discussed as well. We highlight the role of the vacancy rate and try to estimate the “natural” vacancy rate. Finally, we give an outlook.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    In terms of regional office markets, we can distinguish four markets within Flanders (Antwerp, Ghent, Leuven and Mechelen) and three in Wallonia (Liège, Namur and Charleroi). Recently, we have observed a clear upgrading tendency in several regional office markets, and especially the Antwerp one. In 2009, Antwerp was home to 43 % of the total regional stock of 4.71 million m2 of offices. As an illustration of the strong concentration of the office market in Brussels, it suffices to notice that regional markets represent only 26 % of Belgium’s total office stock with the remainder in Brussels.

  2. 2.

    We compiled data using research reports on the Brussels office markets by Jones Lang LaSalle (e.g. 2010 Q4), DTZ (Leroux and Inghles 2010a, b), CBRE (2009) and Knight Frank (2010). We cross-checked these with data series used by lecturers in the Antwerp Management School’s Master of Real Estate programme (Donvil 2011; Van Haare Heijmeijer 2010; Van Straelen 2005; Winssinger 2004) and with data collected by master students (De Bondt and Gorselé 2010). For retail markets, we drew heavily on the data of the Belgian Luxemburg Council of Retail Centres (BLRW) as collated in Van de Cauter (2008) as well as in Luysterman (2011) and Verdonck (2011).

  3. 3.

    We only have statistical information on gross take-up, so our measures of take-up include switching office locations.

  4. 4.

    Besides the prime rent, other rent prices are available such as a weighted average rent and the top-quartile rent. However, in our opinion, prime rents better reflect market trends. Moreover, all kinds of rent values suffer from the failure to consider the impact of incentives. In other words, we lack effective rent levels. This makes rent a rather weak indicator when describing the balance of demand and supply. In that respect, vacancy rates are potentially a much more revealing variable.

  5. 5.

    In Flanders, shopping centres are located in the cities of Antwerp, Ghent, Genk, Hasselt, Kortrijk and Ostend. In Wallonia, there are shopping centres in Liege, Tournai, Mons, Charleroi and Arlon. In 2010, Flanders had a 39 % market share of Belgium shopping centres and Wallonia 41 % (with Brussels housing the other 20 %).

  6. 6.

    Retail parks are defined as a collection of standalone shops on a compact peripheral location. Galleries can be defined as covered streetwise spaces with individual shops on both sides. In contrast to galleries retail parks are a non-urban phenomenon.

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Acknowledgement

We would like to thank O. Lohest of the Belgian Central Bank and S. De Bondt for providing data and useful information. We also express our thanks to P. Winssinger, B. van Haare-Heijmeijer and K. Donvil for each year discussing the trends in commercial real estate markets with the Master of Real Estate students at the Antwerp Management School. The providers of the data are not responsible for the authors’ use thereof.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Antwerp, Prinsstraat 13, 2000, Antwerp, Belgium

    Marc J. K. De Ceuster & Robert Van Straelen

  2. Antwerp Management School, Sint-Jacobsmarkt 13, 2000, Antwerp, Belgium

    Marc J. K. De Ceuster & Robert Van Straelen

Authors
  1. Marc J. K. De Ceuster
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  2. Robert Van Straelen
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Correspondence to Marc J. K. De Ceuster .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Groningen Faculty of Spatial Sciences, Groningen, The Netherlands

    Ed F. Nozeman

  2. University of Groningen Faculty of Spatial Sciences, Groningen, The Netherlands

    Arno J. Van der Vlist

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De Ceuster, M.J.K., Van Straelen, R. (2014). Ten-Year Belgium Office and Retail Markets with a Digression on Vacancy Modelling. In: Nozeman, E., Van der Vlist, A. (eds) European Metropolitan Commercial Real Estate Markets. Advances in Spatial Science. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-37852-2_6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-37852-2_6

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  • Print ISBN: 978-3-642-37851-5

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-642-37852-2

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