1.1 Definition

The real estate production activity consists of the production of real estate, residential or non-residential, in order to sell them to buyers who will then rent them or use them for themselves directly.

The real estate development activity includes all the means and actions implemented to acquire land, build a building, and finally have it acquired by a client.

The real estate development market can be segmented into :

Real estate intended for housing (collective building, individual house...)
Real estate intended for companies (offices, restaurants, shops, warehouses, factories, hotels...)
Real estate intended for leisure and/or the public (gymnasiums, swimming pools, stadiums, hospitals, town halls...)

It is frequent that the professions of land developer and promoter are mixed, although their activities are distinct:

The land developer (subdivider, land developer) acquires large vacant lots, divides them into subdivisions, then installs numerous infrastructures (sewers, aqueducts...)
The real estate developer also acquires vacant land in order to build buildings on it with the aim of selling or leasing them.

The main real estate markets in the world are concentrated in the United States, Asia and Europe, mainly in large cities that attract such as: Hong Kong, Singapore, Paris, London, New York, Los Angeles, and others...

Real estate prices in Belgium have not ceased to increase in recent years, the price index having grown by more than 23% in 6 years, and the health crisis will not have slowed down this evolution in 2020.

On the Belgian market, there are different types of actors linked to real estate development: specialists in real estate development, promoters from the building and public works sector, and promoters from the real estate consulting sector.

1.2 The global market

Global professional real estate investment market World, **-**** Source: ****

The real estate market, which includes real estate development, is mainly driven by the United States (***), Japan, the United Kingdom, Chinagermany, france, Hong Kong, and Canada, according to MSCI.

Size comparison of major real estate markets World, ****, in billions of US dollars Source: ...

1.3 The Belgian market

According to Immoweb, there are *,*** real estate developers and builders in Belgium, offering a total of *,*** properties as of October ****. Although there are a large number of real estate developers, the majority of the market is concentrated in the hands of a small number of players. In the Brussels region, for ...

1.4 The impact of the Covid-19 health crisis on real estate development

As the activity of real estate developers depends in part on the construction of new homes on the territory, which allows them to make sales, a drop in the number of homes built and difficulties in the construction industry inevitably have consequences on the real estate development market in Belgium. The ...

2.1 Determinants of demand

According to La Chronique, the main desires of residential buyers are to live in an individual home, with more space, close to shops, transport, places to live and work, to be able to respect their budgetary constraints, to acquire an energy-efficient home, and to have support services for their purchase. To ...

2.2 The demand for a building permit

In order to better characterize the demand for real estate development activity, we use the statistics of the national institute Statbel. These statistics provide us with information on building permit applications, an essential step in a real estate project. The evolution of the number of permit applications allows us to indirectly ...

3.1 A dynamic market that benefits from innovations

According to several barometers and surveys, real estate professionals are increasingly optimistic. Indeed, the optimism rate for all professions combined has risen from **% in **** to **% in ****. It is notable, however, that only the optimism rate for real estate developers and developers is down very slightly.

Given that the real estate developer ...

3.2 The value chain

The real estate developer is not isolated: the act of real estate development requires the intervention of many actors upstream of the project, during it, and downstream. The main ones are the following:

The project owner. This is the project sponsor, the one who defines the specifications. In the construction industry, ...

3.3 Development of a real estate operation

The criteria for success are rapid marketing and, above all, the conformity of the final result with the budget forecasts. For this, a real estate development operation always follows the same steps:

Launching the project after studying the opportunities Control of the land on which the project will be carried out Study ...

3.4 Financing of a real estate development operation

Real estate development projects can take a long time to get off the ground, and the revenue generated usually comes quite late, so it is necessary to find financing to complete these projects. According to Find and Fund, there are * main sources of financing, with a new one added:

The pre-sale ...

4.1 Services offered

A real estate developer is mainly aimed at individuals, investors and companies with a real estate project. Generally, the developer offers real estate development services, but also many other services surrounding their core business.

In terms of real estate development, they propose contracts :

Of Sale in Future State of Completion (***): in ...

4.2 Rising real estate prices

Real estate developers ultimately sell houses, apartments, offices and other infrastructures at market prices. They have little room for maneuver in terms of price increases due to strong intra-sector competition. Their typical pricing towards their clients is therefore that of the market price, and they make their profits by deducting the ...

4.3 New trends

Real estate crowdfunding is a new mode of financing that is beginning to appear in order to supplement the equity contribution of real estate developers. Various platforms offer this financing, including Lymo, Wiseed, and Anaxago.

The *D virtual tour is becoming more and more popular. New technologies have made it possible ...

5.1 Regulatory framework

In Belgian law, there is no legal definition of real estate development because it covers multiple realities.

There are mainly * forms of real estate development in Belgium:

The promotion-sale: the developer is the project owner, he builds for his own account but with the objective to resell the building afterwards Promotion-construction: ...