"You have the Leie which runs around, and then you have the golf club, and the centre is very small," explains Charlotte Laridon, an estate agent for Engel & Völkers, which has an office on the Kortrijksesteenweg. "If you look around, you see that the properties are all large, on lots of land with large villas from the 1950s and '60s that have always belonged to the same families - rich industrial families who came to live here."

It hasn't changed much since the 1960s. According to figures released by the federal economy ministry last month, it costs more to buy a house in Sint-Martens-Latem (pictured) than anywhere else in Flanders.

"Latem is very central," continues Laridon. "In no time you're at the coast, but you're just as quickly in Brussels. There's also a fast connection to Kortrijk, and the same for Antwerp. In my opinion, that combination, together with the more picturesque aspect and the whole atmosphere of the village, is what makes it so attractive."

She shows me a prospectus for a house at €360,000: four bedrooms on 600 square metres of land. Another offers a villa on six acres for €2.85 million. The range is clearly wide. The average price for a house here is €345,000.

"There aren't many villas for sale here," she explains. "They're kept within the family and passed down the generations, so the supply is very small."

For Latem mayor Freddy Massenhove, the high price of houses is a double-edged sword. "On the one hand, it's a sign of prestige, an indica- tion that people consider living here something worthwhile, something they appreciate. It's a measure of our worth. And one bene␣t of a well-off population is that we can keep local taxes very low."

On the other hand, it can be a problem. House prices are typically pushed up by newcomers will- ing to pay a premium to live in a particular area for what- ever reason - in Latem's case, the location, the bucolic setting, the upscale amenities, including its high-end golf course. High prices spread to other proper- ties in the area, until eventually prices are up across the board. That's good news for sellers, but not for buyers, and particularly bad news for locals. The chances of a young couple getting a foot on the first rung of the ladder in a place like Latem are slim, so local young people have no option but to move away.

"We see that in the population figures; young people leave by the time they're 25, and only start coming back again after the age of 40," says mayor Massenhove. Latem is one of 131 municipalities in Flanders that gives priority to buyers who can demonstrate a link to the area. But priority doesn't help if you can't afford the properties in the first place.

The city is now working with a developer on a housing project called Hooglatem "that will provide affordable housing, with 450 homes planned over the next 20 years," Massenhove says. "The first phase of 65 homes has been granted a permit. There are also about 45 low-priced homes to come in the centre of town." Philippe Buysse, secretary of the Royal Latem Golf Club, says a "good number" of his members live in the local area, confirming the idea that the club is a big attraction for people moving to the village. "Latem is a special place because of its location, and the golf club is part of that environment," he says.

The club's setting, surrounded by villas, makes it "exclusive," he says. At the same time, the fact that those villas back onto one of the smartest golf clubs in the country makes them all the more desirable.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the tracks...
To the naked eye, there's no reason why Ronse should be the cheapest place in Flanders for houses, on average a remarka- bly low €113,000. The prospect as you come into the East Flemish town by train isn't the most salubrious - but, then again, railways generally don't give the best view of a town.

The area around the station and the nearby centre are flowery and remarkably clean. Yes, there are more downscale parts of town - the strip-mall along César Snoecklaan is lined with the usual suspects: Lidl, Zeeman, JBC. On the whole, however, it's the perfect example of a genteel provincial town.

Yves Deworm is alderman for housing, and he's quick to point out that if you're looking for an ordinary terraced house, villa or apartment in Ronse, you'll pay about the same as in many other places in Flanders. But Ronse - just 30 kilometres from Sint- Martens-Latem - has a special feature that pulls average prices down.

"Ronse is an old textile town," he tells me. "There are still a lot of small workers' houses dating from about 1900, grouped around the factories. Many of them are now standing empty because they're not really the kind of thing that attracts even young people."

This is because the houses are only about 4.5 metres wide, "so the only way you'd have some- thing liveable is if you knock two of them together - if you can find two side by side," Deworm says.

In addition, the houses, now more than a century old, are far from meeting the energy and environmental expectations of new buyers. "We've tried reno- vating 35 of the houses, but we just don't have the resources to do more," explains Deworm. One local estate agent has one for sale at only €55,000 - but it only has a floor area of 56 square metres, and it needs fixing up. At the upper end of the scale, you'll easily find villas selling at €450,000, not far off the average price for Sint-Martens-Latem. The average price for an area may give a broad general picture, but it doesn't tell the whole story. Between the top and the bottom of the rankings, there's less difference than bare figures would lead you to expect.

A local estate agent explained that there's another problem about property in Ronse: there's too much of it, and properties tend to stay on the market for longer. "We don't know why that is," she says.

http://bestat.economie.fgov.be

Meanwhile, in Brussels and Wallonia
The cheapest houses in Flanders are not the cheapest in the country, and the same goes for the dearest.

Houses in Ronse, which lies in East Flanders, just on the border with Wallonia, cost an average of €113,000, the least expensive in Flanders. The lowest average price in Wallonia is around €107,000. Villas in Ronse cost on average €212,000, but everywhere in Wallonia is cheaper (apart from some more upscale municipalities around Namur and Liège).

Apartments in Ronse cost on average €146,000; in Wallonia they're on average less expensive, except in Walloon Brabant. As Ronse lies so close to Wallonia, the competition has a downward effect on prices in Ronse.
Sint-Martens-Latem is not, by the same token, the most expensive place to live in Belgium. The average price in Latem of €345,000 is easily topped by houses in Brussels. The average price in Sint-Pieters- Woluwe, for instance, is a whopping €428,000.

Apartments in Latem cost on average €464,000 but that reflects the extreme scarcity; in Sint-Pieters-Woluwe, where they are more abundant, they cost €275,000. And a villa in Latem at €588,000 is nearly half the price of something comparable in Ukkel at €1,022,000.

In the villa category, Latem, in fact, also lies far behind Knokke-Heist on the coast, where the average price is no less than €1,114,000. Villas also cost more in Kraainem, Flemish Brabant, and about the same as Latem in Brasschaat, Antwerp province, a municipality that attracts many Dutch expats.

In Knokke-Heist, where there are many apartments for sale, the average price is about €40,000 less than in Latem. An apartment in Brussels will cost on average €186,000, but that figure combines the lows (Sint-Joost-ten-Node at €123,000) and the highs (Sint-Pieters-Woluwe at €275,000).