Student accommodation fees climb due to lack of supply

Monthly rents for students have risen by an average of €100 over the past five years, according to newly published analysis by Kotkompas – a tool developed to comment on the student housing market.

According to the research, the average student rent in shared accommodation in Belgium is €575 including charges. For a studio, the price rises to €780 per month on average.

Unsurprisingly, the most expensive town to stay away from home in Belgium is the capital, where rents average €680 per month.

These high prices cause problems for students and their families, with one in four students saying they have difficulty paying rent or energy bills. Affordability is by far the most important reason why students do not opt for student accommodation.

Kotkompas creators, Frederik Boumans and Arne Hermans say the problem is that not enough new rooms are being built.

"The construction of student rooms is going far too slowly and stopping this shortage is essential to keep spiralling prices under control," Boumans said.

The biggest obstacle is the permit process, which is complex and requires input from several agencies. “According to our survey, it takes an average of four years between the start-up and actual delivery of a project,” he added.

In 2020, the additional need for student accommodation was estimated at 95,000 units by 2030. Since then, approximately 25,000 rooms have been completed, meaning another 70,000 are needed to meet the demand – a goal that does not look achievable, given the time needed to grant a permit.

As it stands, accommodation costs vary considerably across the country. While cities such as Hasselt and Kortrijk are deemed to have a “balanced student housing market”, the shortage of kots, rooms or studios in Ghent and Brussels remains acute.

In the 2023-2024 academic year – the latest figures available for the Kotkompas – Brussels had about 125,000 students, 1,500 more than in 2022-2023. This makes the capital not only the largest student city in Belgium, but also the only one comparable with cities such as Amsterdam, Paris and Barcelona at the European level.

The increasing number of students is putting extra pressure on the housing market. According to Kotkompas estimates, some 20,000 students need to look on the regular housing market, which increases competition for accommodation with families and other tenants.

Initiatives are being taken to relieve this pressure. Brussels’ Dutch- and French-speaking universities VUB and ULB respectively are building a new Learning & Innovation Center of 9,000m² on the border of their campuses.

Student accommodation blocks such as the new U-Residence of Diggit StudentLife, opposite the Arsenal in Etterbeek, are also trying to respond to the increasing demand for high quality, affordable rooms.

However, these efforts are not enough, argue Hermans and Boumans, who are calling for a "creative" and "flexible" policy.

“Student villages, temporary modular constructions, larger housing projects on the outskirts of the city and the preservation of existing supply can help to bring prices down,” Hermans said. “But then some local rules have to be relaxed.”

The two developed the Kotkompas to “map out the Belgian housing market”. They say that the insights gained can provide “inspiration for various stakeholders such as investors, developers, managers and governments to better respond to possible opportunities, linked to the needs of the core audience, in particular students and higher education institutions.”