Statistics Belgium

(A division of the Federal Public Service Economy, SMEs, Self-employed and Energy)

Economic Statistics - Price Statistics Unit

Directorate General Statistics - Statistics Belgium

North Gate - Boulevard du Roi Albert II, 16 - 1000 Brussels

The OOHPI is based on the ‘net acquisitions’ approach, which measures changes in prices paid by households for the acquisition of dwellings that are new to the household sector and changes in other costs related to the ownership, and transfer of ownership, of dwellings.

The OOHPI is broken down into the following expenditure categories:

• O.1. Owner-occupiers’ housing expenditure;
  • O.1.1. Acquisitions of dwellings;
    • O.1.1.1. New dwellings;
      • O.1.1.1.1. Purchases of newly built dwellings;
      • O.1.1.1.2. Self-build dwellings and major renovations;
    • O.1.1.2. Existing dwellings new to households;
    • O.1.1.3. Other services related to the acquisition of dwellings;
  • O.1.2. Ownership of dwellings;
    • O.1.2.1. Major repairs and maintenance;
    • O.1.2.2. Insurance connected with dwellings;
    • O.1.2.3. Other services related to ownership of dwellings.

Households which are owner occupiers.

The main statistical variables are price indices.

The basic unit of statistical observation are transaction prices of dwellings new to the household sector and of other products that the households acquire in their role as owner-occupiers.

The target population is the set of dwellings occupied by their owners (owner occupied dwellings).

Prices are collected over the whole territory of Belgium.

Data are available since 2005 for all of the index series, except for the index for major repair and maintenance (see also 12.3)

2015=100

The following units are used:

- Index point;
- Percentage change on the same period of the previous year (rates);
- Percentage change on the previous period (rates);
- Percentage share of the total (weights).

OOHPI is a quarterly statistics.

Commission Regulation (EU) No 2016/792 and Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2023/1470.

Not applicable

Regulation (EC) No 223/2009 of the European Parliament and of the Council, of 11 March 2009, on the transmission of data subject to statistical confidentiality to the Statistical Office of the European Communities.

Belgian Statistical Law of 22 March 2006.

Not applicable, only aggregate indices are published.

The OOH indices are currently not published on the website of Statistics Belgium. They are only published on the website of Eurostat.

Not applicable, since the OOH indices are currently not published on the website of Statistics Belgium. They are only published on the website of Eurostat.

Not applicable, since the OOH indices are currently not published on the website of Statistics Belgium. They are only published on the website of Eurostat.

Quarterly (OOHPI) and annually (weights)

Not applicable, since the OOH indices are currently not published on the website of Statistics Belgium. They are only published on the website of Eurostat.

Not applicable, since the OOH indices are currently not published on the website of Statistics Belgium. They are only published on the website of Eurostat.

Not applicable, since the OOH indices are currently not published on the website of Statistics Belgium. They are only published on the website of Eurostat.

Micro-data is not published

Not applicable, since the OOH indices are currently not published on the website of Statistics Belgium. They are only published on the website of Eurostat.

Grant reports made during the development of the OOH indices are available, but not published.

Not available.

Statistics Belgium has an own developed quality management system using an independent validation service which validates data before publication or transfer to Eurostat. Another aspect is the use of Quality Indicators for all statistics. Every year the quality of statistics produced by Statistics Belgium are assessed using quality indicators. The criteria used are relevance, accuracy, timeliness, coherence and comparability, cost and burden, process quality and accessibility.

The quality of the HPI index is assessed on the basis of the technical manual on owner-occupied housing and house price indices published by Eurostat.

OOH indices are developed according to the methodology developed by the Real Estate Price Statistics Working Group and in line with Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2023/1470. This methodology is aimed at producing indices which respond to the needs of users interested in studying the behaviour of the housing market. Key users are the ECB, National Central Banks, financial institutions and economic analysts.

A user satisfaction survey is carried out by Statistics Belgium. The survey and the results can be found in Statistics Belgium website, in French and Dutch.

All expenditures covered in Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2023/1470 regulation are taken into account when they represent at least 5% of expenditures. Expenditures for existing dwellings new to housing sector are estimated to be negligible.

For additional costs related to the acquisition of existing dwellings, indices are based on administrative data sources which cover the whole universe and thus the accuracy is guaranteed by default. 

However, the land registry data for newly built dwellings do not cover the whole universe because characteristics are often incomplete or available in a timely manner. Therefore, the transactions for dwellings build in the last 5 years are used as a proxy for the index of newly built dwellings for the most recent quarter.

The output price index for construction of residential dwellings is used as a proxy for the self-build dwellings and major renovations, there the accuracy is guaranteed by observing prices of a great number of diverse products. The accuracy cannot be quantified however due to the use of non-probability sampling and complexity of price index structures. However accuracy on the overall output price index level is higher than on a disaggregated level. The main sources of error are: 

• Errors in the sample of data suppliers,
• Errors in the choice of products in the sample and the estimate of quality adjustment in case of replacements,
• Errors during price collection,
• Errors in determining the out price index weights,
• Non response.

Non-probability sampling is used. 

Not available

Data are sent within the delays prescribed by Regulation (EU) 2016/792 (t+85 days after the end of the reference period for the indices). No national publication takes place.

Not applicable, all OOH price indices have been sent on time.

The OOH indices are only compiled at the country level. Regional indices are not available. However, OOH indices are developed in the OOH framework elaborated at the European level and are therefore comparable across European countries.

OOH indices are comparable over time.

The output price index for construction is used as a proxy for the indices for self-build dwellings and major renovations. Purchase of new and existing dwellings partially overlaps with statistics on the housing market published on https://statbel.fgov.be/en/themes/housing/real-estate. However, the methodology used in these statistics differs from the methods used in the HPI which only focuses on the household sector and which takes into account quality changes using the hedonic repricing method (see 18.5).

OOH sub-indices are checked for consistency.

The total number of man-days expressed in full-time equivalent is estimated at 25 days/year. Burden on respondent is limited because the different OOH sub-indices are mainly based on administrative data. Data from the construction price survey is re-used for self-build dwelling and major renovations and for major repair and maintenance of the dwellings, this is however not a specific OOH price index burden.

The OOH indices are subjected to revisions in accordance with Implementing Regulation (EU) 2023/1470 

The OOH indices are subjected to revisions in accordance with Implementing Regulation (EU) 2023/1470 

See below.

For the secondary and primary market related indices (costs related to purchases of newly built and existing dwellings), data of the land registry is used. These costs are compiled based on the transaction data of the land registry.

For the 'Self-build dwellings and major renovations' the output price index for construction for residential dwellings is used. The prices are collected from large general building companies. The bank costs are collected from the most important banks. Insurance costs are collected from insurance companies.

Weights of the different items of OOH are annually revised using the most recent national account data (t-2) and are price updated to the last quarter of year t-1. Weights of the different property types in the index for purchase of existing dwellings are computed as the total transaction costs for each type.

All data are collected quarterly.

Administrative data are transferred via SFTP. Data of the output price index for the construction of residential dwellings uses for some sub-indices of OOH 'Self-build dwellings and major renovations', 'Major repairs and maintenance'). That survey is carried out via the web (XBRL).

Statistical outlier detection methods are applied on the administrative data. Abnormal data collected for the producer price index for the construction sector (used as a proxy for some subindices of OOH) are manually checked.

See below.

See below.

OOHPI is a Laspeyres-type price index.

OOH indices for new dwellings and other services related to the acquisition of the dwellings are first computed by property type. These indices are combined with indices based on Q4 t-1 of other components of the OOH and are aggregated using the traditional Laspeyres formula.

Weights of the different items of OOH are annually revised using the most recent national account data (t-2) for the purchase of new dwellings and for self-build dwellings and major renovation. Gross fixed capital formation by households is used and is price updated to the last quarter of year t-1. Data on building permits (namely the number of permits issued for new construction or for renovations) are used to split the weights between new-dwellings and self-build dwellings and major renovation.

Data on intermediate consumption in housing services from national account are used to derive the weights for insurance connected to the dwelling and major repair and maintenance.

The weights for other services related to the acquisition of dwellings are based on data from the Land Registry (t-1) and are computed as the total additional fees based on the transaction values for each type of properties on the secundary market. These fees include registration rights on the purchases of dwelling or for mortgage loans, notary costs and real estate agent fees.  Real estate agents fee are a percentage of the dwellings value and are estimated with a survey addressed to real estate agents. The total expenditures for real estate agent fees are then obtained on applying this percentage to the total value of transactions obtained from the land registry data.

Data on the proportion of owner-occupiers found in the results of the SILC survey are used to adjust the expenditures in gross fixed capital formation in housing and the weights for other services related to the acquisition of dwellings.

The weights for the purchase of new dwellings, self-build dwelling and major renovations, major repair and maintenance and insurance are based on national account data (t-2) and are price updated to t-1 using the corresponding OOH sub-indices. The weight for other services related to the acquisition of dwellings is based on transaction data for year t-1 and are therefore not price updated.

All sub-indices are first computed based on the fourth quarter of previous year. These short-term indices are then chained to obtain a long-term series and these series are rebased so that the average of the indices of the reference year (currently 2015) is equal to 100.

See below.

Prices at transfer of ownership are taken into account for the purchase of new dwellings and for other services related to the acquisition of the dwellings when these are proportional to the transaction costs. Prices at the commencement of the service are taken into account for insurance (similar to HICP rules)

VAT is included in the price of newly built dwellings.

Registration taxes are covered in O.1.1.3.

Government subsidies or fiscal incentives are not taken into account.

Land is included in the indices relating to the primary market (purchase of newly built dwellings) and of the secundary market (other services related to the acquisitions of dwellings, namely registration rights).  However land is excluded from the weights and from the indices for self-build dwellings.

Housing cooperatives don't exist in Belgium.

Purchases of existing dwellings new to households are not covered because the weight is negligible. Non-market transactions are excluded from the indices for newly built dwellings.

The database of the Land Registry contains notarial deeds that appear multiple times in the database. One category is a category of deeds that have been altered several times.  Deeds can consist of acts several properties per deed. In this case a price is not consistently given to the separate properties, making it impossible to use these in the computation of indices. Deeds with multiple properties can in some cases be regrouped to a single deed. An example can be a deed with a house with an extra piece of land and a garage can be regrouped to a single observation, or an apartment with an extra cellar. The notarial deeds with a single observation and with deeds regrouped to a single observation are used to calculate the indices for the secondary market. However, the notarial deeds with single and multiple properties are used in the calculation of the weights.

Only deed on the full value of the transaction are taken into account in the indices for owner occupied housing costs.

See below.

The Jevons index formula is used for the indices for self-build dwellings and major renovations, for major repair and maintenance of the dwellings and for real estate agent fees. For new dwellings and other services related to the acquisitions of dwellings, the hedonic repricing formula is used. For the later (based on registration rights on the purchase and on the mortgages), the fees are calculated on basis of the transaction value and hedonic repricing is used to adjust for quality changes. For insurance connected with the dwellings, the Laspeyres formula is used. The weights of the insurance companies is based on their insurance capital for residential dwellings.  For each insurance company the average commercial premium rate for residential dwellings is used.

Product replacements are only relevant for real estate agent fees or for indices derived from construction price statistics. In both case, product definitions are used. These definitions serve as a guideline to select a comparable replacement.

Bridged overlap based on targeted mean imputation in the same consumption strata is used for the indices for self-build dwellings and major renovations, for major repair and maintenance of the dwellings and for real estate agent fees. For new dwellings and other services related to the acquisitions of dwellings, the hedonic repricing formula is use to adjust for quality changes.

Missing price in data from the Land Registry are excluded from the computation of the relevant OOH subindices (other costs related to the acquisition of the dwellings). For indices derived from construction price statistics or for indices for real estate agent fees or for insurance services, missing prices can results from tempory closure of the companies. These missing prices are therefore imputed on basis of the price evolution in the corresponding strata.

All prices that are subjected to non-discriminatory price reductions are taken into account. In practice this is only relevant for insurance services.

Until now, no cases of prices going from zero to a positive price or vice-versa have been observed. If such changes would occur, these would be treated like this: if a price goes from a positive value to zero, this decrease would be taken into account. In the opposite case, the price evolution would be taken into account based on an estimation of the expendtitures in the reference period.

VAT is included in the prices of new dwellings, insurance services, real estate agent fees and prices for self-build dwellings and major renovations and prices for major repair and maintenance. Costs for registration rights are not subject to VAT.

Not applicable.

None.