Cosmopolis Lunch Seminar w/ Margot Dior Peelman | Brussels Centre for Urban Studies

            The Cosmopolis Lunch Seminars are meetings hosted by Cosmopolis, which allow researchers from within and outside of the research group to share the progress and findings of their research on urban issues. Every presentation is a starting point for a larger debate on urban research issues tackled by all the participants. During the 1h, there is a presentation or debate with one or more (guest) speaker and ample time for further conversation with all present. Afterwards, we take a collective break (we provide desserts!) where conversations can continue in an informal setting.
          

Measuring rent on the rental market through the study of maintenance costs | Margot Dior Peelman (PhD researcher, ULB)

For a lot of households, it has become more and more difficult to afford a rather basic need: housing. High rents are a problem in many cities. In Belgium, approximately 35 % of households are tenants, yet in Brussels the percentage rises to 62 %, and in the central neighbourhoods, to over 70 %. For the most disadvantaged 25 % of households, rents represent over 45 % of their budget.

To contribute to the debate high rent, we have provided an exploratory empirical analysis of the actual contribution made by landlords to the maintenance of rental housing, and an estimate of the extent of the rent. This work is in keeping with the hypotheses of classical economists, according to whom rent is equivalent to the difference between the price and the value of a commodity, i.e. the amount of labour required to produce it. Through an analysis covering different retrospective periods, maintenance costs are estimated at 10 % of rents, which is well below the 40 % used in the calculation of cadastral income used as the tax base for the taxation of rental income. Ultimately, for the various cases studied, the rent would be around 50 % to 60 % of the rents. Furthermore, the ratio of rental income to actual time spent working by landlords has made it possible to establish assumed wages, which are well above the average wage. This comes as an indication that letting accommodation is more about the extraction of rent than the remuneration of work.

Margot Dior Peelman is an economist and geograph, currently doctoral student at the Laboratoire de Géographie humaine of the Université Libre de Bruxelles. She is particularly interested in how cities are made and their uses, through the question of housing. Previously, she has worked on rental housing and rent pricing. She is currently working on a thesis on the production and use of social housing in Brussels, with an approach which combines quantitative and qualitative methods, at the crossroads of economics and geography.