Open drug use, shootings and residents who feel unsafe: Brussels has been in the news negatively quite a few times in recent months.

The real estate market is also affected. Crime and a lack of safety in and around the Brussels Midi station, Anderlecht and Molenbeek weigh on prices.

"I have not regretted it for a second." Brian and his girlfriend lived in Anderlecht, near the border with Saint-Gilles, for about four years. They left in December with a baby on the way. In the last few months, Brian hardly dared to go out anymore. “On the street, some people were less and less ashamed of using drugs or intimidating others. Last month, there was also a case of road rage in the neighborhood. This is not the environment in which I want to raise my daughter," he tells The Brussels Times.

Although real estate prices in Anderlecht and Molenbeek have never been the most attractive in Brussels, the shootings and growing sense of insecurity in recent months have pushed their desirability even lower than before.

Impact on real estate market

It is difficult to estimate how severe the impact is. Various international studies indicate that high crime rates have a negative impact on property prices. However, not all crime has the same impact: violence and theft in particular have a depressing effect on prices.

Kristien Viaene of the Confederation of Real Estate Professions and real estate agent at Dewaele tells us: "It is logical that prices fall in high-crime neighborhoods. People think twice before deciding whether to move there or to find out more about the neighborhood. We saw the same thing after the attacks. Then Molenbeek was hell for the whole world."

"But you have to be careful: just because there are shootings in a neighborhood today, doesn't mean that property prices will immediately fall tomorrow. Real estate is a slow-reacting market. It reacts a little faster to a downward trend, and slower in the opposite direction. It is difficult to say what is cause and what is effect in such neighborhoods. Where there is a lot of crime, it is often also cheaper to live, which can lead to a ghetto atmosphere at a certain point. One encourages the other."

Katrien Kempe, director of the professional association of property developers and investors (UPSI-BVS): "If many people move away due to crime, you run the risk of entire neighborhoods emptying out. This can lead to vacancy and dilapidation, causing all houses in that neighborhood to lose value. In some neighborhoods, you not only see a drop in prices, but real estate also remains for sale for longer."

"If you look at the map with the sales prices per square meter and the number of registered criminal offences, you can see an inversely proportional relationship between crime and prices, especially on the west side of Brussels. This does not seem to be the case for the entire region. In the center, there are a number of areas with a high level of registered crime, especially in the tourist center. There, you cannot establish a correlation with higher or lower property prices. That is linked to the high concentration of tourists," Kempe says.

The issue of insecurity in Brussels is anything but new. Police statistics show that crime in the Brussels Region has been on the rise in recent years, with a peak in the corona year 2020 and another one in 2023.

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Two years ago, more than 30 neighborhood committees and organizations wrote an open letter to express their dissatisfaction with the lack of safety in various Brussels neighborhoods. In mid-December 2024, the CEOs of ING, Axa and Deutsche Bank wrote an urgent letter to the authorities about the deteriorating security situation at their headquarters near the Porte de Namur.

Katrien Kempe: "The feeling of insecurity is much higher in Brussels than in the other regions. In 2021, 16% of citizens surveyed in Brussels indicated that they often or always feel unsafe. In Flanders, that figure is 6%. The crime rate is also rising. Partly as a result of this, Brussels has been struggling with urban exodus for years: fewer people are settling there than are arriving. There is population growth, but it is mainly due to immigration."

For a certain part of the public and investors, the negative image of Anderlecht or Molenbeek reflects on the entire city, says Viaene.

"People who don't know Brussels don't distinguish between neighbourhoods. When I tell my colleagues from West Flanders that I live in Brussels, they say: what are you doing there, it's really dangerous there. We have had clients who had to come to Brussels to sign a deed. It was in Ixelles, which has nothing to do with Molenbeek, but they cancelled anyway."

Katrien Kempe: “If people abroad are looking at the investment potential of Brussels in terms of real estate, and I'm talking about housing and office buildings, then it's always difficult for the reputation, especially in combination with the fact that there is no government. That is just what we need in Brussels, investors."

Anderlecht and Molenbeek have had a negative image for some time now, but it is possible to turn the tide, says Kristien Viaene.

"Molenbeek is proof of that. Some neighbourhoods in Molenbeek are undergoing a total re-evaluation. The Canal Zone, which is partly Molenbeek territory, is evolving very nicely. It is working there, the re-evaluation of the neighborhood. It takes a lot of time. It is an effort of several actors at the same time."

"In Molenbeek, there was interest from private players, such as real estate investors and developers who are looking for opportunities at a certain moment. They were able to buy at a reasonable price at a certain moment. There was also a government that believed in it and looked beyond a single project, but had the development of the neighbourhood and the canal zone in mind. A park is planned, a new bridge over the canal is built, Maximilian Park will be renovated, and public works will be carried out. There will be museums, shops and initiatives for young people. Everyone must work together constructively."

"It doesn’t always work. An example of that is the Midi Station and the surrounding area. Ten, fifteen years ago, they said ‘we are going to tackle this’. A new car park and office buildings were built, but if you walk around there now, it is still sad. It also always receives negative press. In some places it works, in others it does not," Viaene says.