About the observatory

Observatoire LCD (LCD stands for location courte durée, short-term rental) brings together what public data says about homes rented by the night in Brussels, Antwerp and Ghent: how many there are, the rates they list, how many nights they appear to book, what that adds up to in gross revenue, and how all of this shifts between neighbourhoods, months and home sizes. The site makes no personal estimate and sells nothing: read it like a statistical yearbook.

Where the figures come from

Every series is built on the files published by Inside Airbnb, an independent project that collects the content of listings visible online and shares it under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International. We derive medians and quartiles using a method described step by step on the methodology page, and we publish the aggregated tables as open data. No figure on this site is typed in by hand: they are all recomputed from those files each time the site is generated. The observatory has no connection with Airbnb.

Who publishes it

The observatory is published by Hexuvium Services Limited, a company that runs short-term rentals on behalf of owners. We first built these series for our own reading of the market, then chose to publish them together with their method, because a figure without a method is of little use. If you are looking for Airbnb management in Brussels rather than statistics, that is what Hexuvium does; this is the only place on the site where we mention it.

What the observatory does not tell you

Revenue figures are estimated gross revenue, before platform fees, cleaning, laundry, energy, upkeep and any other cost. They are neither promises nor forecasts. Nights booked are an Inside Airbnb estimate based on the reviews guests leave.

Spotted an error, or have a question about a series? contact@hexuvium.com.