It can finally be about the content and not just about Conner Rousseau. It is a phrase that is sometimes heard among Flemish socialists these days. The fact that the saga surrounding the possible return of the party figurehead will now last another two months obviously does not help. Nevertheless, Vooruit attempted to turn the tide on Wednesday.
Unfinished business
The party proposed the housing plan with which it appeals to voters and perhaps also to government negotiations. Housing will be one of the spearheads for the socialists, just like education, healthcare and purchasing power. The plans start from the conclusion that, after the Netherlands, it is also gradually becoming unaffordable in Flanders to rent or buy a home.
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Vooruit chairwoman Melissa Depraetere at her party’s New Year’s reception in Bruges. — © BELGA
It was calculated in advance that buying a house has become 5 times more expensive than it was 30 years ago. Prices have risen twice as fast as our wages. “Starters now have to contribute an average of 60,000 euros themselves, which is impossible without the help of parents,” it says. And renting is also expensive. Rents have doubled compared to 20 years ago. “High time to intervene. On the purchase and rental market. To give young starters priority over buyers and to curb exorbitant prices,” say chairwoman Melissa Depraetere and housing expert and Flemish Member of Parliament Maxim Veys.
Below market price
Vooruit wants to make the first home cheaper and the second home a lot more expensive. By canceling the registration fees on the first tranche of 250,000. Up to 450,000 euros the rate is 3 percent and everything above 6 percent. “In this way, all homes under 700,000 euros become cheaper, while the average price is now 355,000 euros,” says Depraetere. Vooruit pays for the reform through much higher registration fees for second homes. They would go from 12 to 21 percent.
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Flemish MP and housing expert Maxim Veys co-wrote Vooruit’s housing plan. — © BELGA
The socialists also give city mayors weapons against real estate agents and speculators who buy up a lot in certain neighborhoods and then turn them into Airbnb stays or luxury apartments. From now on, it should be possible to only sell homes in popular, expensive neighborhoods to those who will live there for at least 4 years, a system that already exists in the Netherlands and was invented by Rotterdam mayor Aboutaleb. Real estate agents can only make a move if they rent the property below the market price.
Account for rental prices
In addition, Vooruit is tackling notary rates. Additional costs for searches or administrative formalities are no longer possible. And brokers’ commissions must also be reduced, from 3 to 4 to 2 percent.
“High time to intervene. On the purchase and rental market. To give young starters priority over buyers and to curb exorbitant prices.”
Melissa overtakes
Chairman Vooruit
To make rent cheaper, Vooruit looks to Germany, where market-based rents are used. That is why the party in Flanders wants to use the prices of the Huurschatter site, with a margin of 10 percent. Anyone who asks for more will have to answer to a rental committee. Other proposals: ban the indexation of rental properties with the EPC label E and F and reduce the rental deposit from 3 to 2 months.
According to Depraetere, the Vooruit plan costs nothing and is mainly financed by the higher registration fees for second homes and the increasingly higher proceeds from the abolition of the housing bonus.