1. Ag.No. 8.5 Estate Agency Rent Surveys
Doc.A64645/18/09
Ag.No. 8.5 Estate Agency Rent Surveys
Working Group on Articles 64 and 65 of the Staff Regulations
Meeting in Luxembourg March 2018

2. Content of this presentation
Rents brochure: latest results (2017)
Organisational arrangements for 2018
Selecting residential locations (reminder)
History of dwelling types (reminder)
Source of updating indices (reminder)
New taper weights already for 2017 (reminder)

3. Rents brochure
Latest version (2017 results) available online (Eurostat dedicated section) since February 2018
remuneration/estate-agency-rent-surveys
Structure and content same as in previous years
16 pages
Overview of methodology; Table with average rent value by dwelling type; Graph of rent price index relative to Brussels for apartments; List of dwelling size categories; List of neighbourhoods.

4. Rents brochure - data for 55 locations
Intra-EU coverage
28 capitals
5 ‘CC’ non capitals (DEBonn, DEKarlsruhe, DEMunich, ITVarese, UKOxford)
2 other non-capitals (FRLyon, UKReading)
Extra-EU coverage:
9x ESTAT-ECP capitals (IS, NO, CH, TR, AL, BA, MK, ME, RS)
5x ISRP-ECP capitals (CA, JP, KR, MX, US) + 2 (AU, NZ)
1 other capital (Singapore)
3 non-capitals (CANMontreal, CHGeneva, USANewYork)

5. Organisational arrangements for 2018
Planned distribution of tasks (ESTAT/ISRP/NSI)
Proposed survey timetable
Updated survey guidelines
Financing arrangements and data-sharing
ECP grants; specific contract (EU non capitals); neighbourhood grants (non-EU ESTAT-ECP capitals); or self-financed
MoU (=separate agenda point)

6. Selecting residential locations
Changes made in 2017 compared to 2016 in 6 cities
Review for 2018 based on 2017 survey reports and other available information: reminder of agreed criteria
Requested to clarify “residential area of good quality where professional people live eg. doctors, managers, lawyers”
... What to?

7. Social class: an emotional concept!
Sociology theory: Marx, Weber… control of economic, cultural and social resources. Continuum? Discrete? Porous? Meritocracy. Are we all “Middle Class” now?
European Socio-economic Classification (ESeC) 2001, 9 categories linked to ISCO.
► Suggestion “ESeC 1 higher managers/professionals; ESeC 2 lower managers/professionals, higher supervisory/technical”
and add “within reasonable travelling distance of international schools” ?

8. History of dwelling types
Apartments (3 definitions) and houses (2 definitions)
13 size classes altogether in Brussels
Subset of 5 in each duty station (most representative size)
Reviewed during each survey for continued relevance
No changes made in 2017 by comparison to 2016
No proposals for change in 2018

9. Source of updating indices
In each duty station, most relevant index used for rent updating purposes
Typically subindex of national CPI, but not always
Reviewed during each annual survey for continued relevance
No changes made in 2017 by comparison to 2016
No proposals for change in 2018

10. New taper weights already July 2017
SHS 2016 results were already used to update dwelling-type preference weights for all duty stations with effect for the July 2016 rent PPP calculation
SHS 2016 was re-analysed to identify taper weights (typical duration of residence in current dwelling) and used with effect for July 2017 rent PPP calculation
No changes required for July 2018 calculation exercise

11. Thank you for your attention!