Exploring Knokke - Financieel Dagblad
Knokke stands out for its exclusive property market, high transaction volume and appeal to high-net-worth buyers. Luxury properties worth several million euros are quickly snapped up by new owners. Alex Dewulf explains why Knokke continues to grow as one of the most sought-after property locations on the European coast.
Summer in Knokke
Along the seafront in Knokke, Flanders, stands a wall of flats, almost with their feet in the sand. Eight storeys high, their large glass façades gaze hungrily out to sea. Some have small balconies, but they catch no sun. Unlike the Dutch coast, Knokke’s coastline is more west-east oriented. Here, in the evening, the sun does not set into the sea, but into the oil storage tanks at the port of Zeebrugge, the neighbouring municipality.
Along the Zeedijk in Knokke, Flanders, stands a wall of blocks of flats, almost with their feet in the sand. Eight storeys high, their large glass façades gaze hungrily out to sea. Some have small balconies, but they catch no sun. Unlike the Dutch coast, Knokke’s coastline is more west-east oriented. Here, in the evening, the sun does not set into the sea, but into the oil storage facilities at the port of Zeebrugge, the neighbouring municipality.
Two things stand out. The large number of ‘For Sale’ signs. And the countless estate agents’ offices in the ground-floor units of the blocks of flats. You can find one on every corner. Right next to a contemporary art gallery, because there are plenty of those too.
If there’s anywhere you can gauge the economic success of seaside resorts, it’s in Knokke-Heist in Belgium, and particularly in the part known as Knokke. The Monaco of the North Sea? Belgium’s Côte d’Azur? Bring on the comparisons, because this is where the cream of entrepreneurial Belgium has its ‘residence’ (domicile, ed.). Not on the Zeedijk, but in the neighbourhood behind it, Het Zoute (pronounced ‘het zoete’), where country houses line meandering avenues and undoubtedly deserve the label ‘luxury’.
In the Netherlands,the wealthyhave to be patient if they want to sell their multi-million homes discreetly and privately. Here, they’re simply displayed in the estate agent’s window. Knokke is a market where properties worth €5 million change hands with ease. There is not a single coastal municipality on the Atlantic coast, from Cabo de São Vicente in Portugal to Sylt in Germany, that attracts so many eager property investors.
‘There are a lot of transactions here – around a thousand a year in the flat market and three hundred in the house market. And that, in turn, attracts buyers, because they know they can sell it on again if they no longer fancy it or their financial situation changes,’ says Alex Dewulf, one of around seventy estate agents in Knokke; his office is one of the larger ones. ‘I estimate that 40 per cent to 50 per cent of the flats are priced above a million. And that’s for a small municipality like Knokke-Heist (32,415 inhabitants, ed.). Every year, a handful of villas are sold here for over €10 million. That’s exceptional for Belgium. And for the Netherlands too, I think.’
According to Dewulf, both changing working habits and the construction of a new motorway – the A11 from Bruges to Antwerp – have led to more entrepreneurs recently setting up in Knokke. ‘The south of West Flanders is known as a very entrepreneurial region,’ says Dewulf. ‘The motorway has cut the journey time to Kortrijk by twenty minutes. In the past, CEOs used to live near their companies and spend the weekends here. Now they drive to Knokke every day and only stay overnight there if they’re working late.’
The seaside resort attracts not only Belgian entrepreneurs; around a quarter are from abroad. Reportedly, the family of Raymond Cloosterman (Rituals) and Colette van Eerd (Jumbo) also divides its time between the Bommelerwaard and Knokke.
Incidentally, the most expensive property in Knokke did stand empty for a while. Not a villa, but a 500-square-metre penthouse with a 300-square-metre terrace in a rather dull complex with the telling name Finis Terrae, meaning ‘the end of the world’. It is situated on the final stretch of the Zeedijk, which is just wide enough for a cycle path there, with the Het Zwin nature reserve as its back garden. Two months ago, the nationalised bank Belfius sold it to property dealer Johan Vandendriessche. The figure most frequently cited is €30 million.
Belfius, in turn, had acquired it from the well-known Belgian entrepreneur Paul Gheysens, owner of the property company Ghelamco and chairman of Antwerp Football Club. Ghelamco ran into difficulties in Poland earlier this year over the repayment of a large bond, and since then Gheysens has had to sell off one private property after another in Knokke and Saint-Tropez to meet his obligations.
This also brought an abrupt end to the so-called ‘golf war’, as the long-standing feud between Gheysens and another Knokke entrepreneur, Peter Taffeiren, is known. A tragic story. The visionary Gheysens has spent twenty-five years working to realise a second golf course complex in Knokke. In his view, this is desperately needed, as the existing private Royal Zoute Golf Club (founded in 1909) is at full capacity. New members have to wait years to be admitted through the selection process.
As early as 2001, Gheysens began purchasing plots of polder land in Heist, which together were to form a complex totalling 120 hectares with 27 holes. The closer he gets to realising his dream, the more resistance he encounters from Peter Taffeiren, who lives on the future site. Taffeiren lodged an appeal against Gheysens’ planning permission and also succeeded in having the purchase of several plots of land annulled by the court. Without Taffeiren, there will be no new golf course – that much is clear. So to whom is Gheysens forced to sell his golf courses in April? Exactly: to Peter Taffeiren, who forms a consortium with local investors for this purpose.
‘The golf course in Het Zoute is very exclusive,’ says Dewulf. ‘And they’ll keep it that way, because if they let more people in, their highly valued members will have fewer slots to play.’ Dewulf also thinks that a second club would be very welcome. ‘Wealthy people like to meet up on the golf course. But of course, between dream and reality, there are laws and practical objections standing in the way. And red tape. That will be the same in Belgium as it is in the Netherlands.’
Mind you, the second golf course will still go ahead. The new owners just need to find a way to make it profitable, says Mayor Cathy Coudyser. The council has granted permission for a golf course open to the public with ‘affordable prices’ and a hotel with at least a hundred rooms. ‘Paul Gheysens had megalomaniacal plans that weren’t really suited to Knokke-Heist,’ she says. ‘Will it now be another course designed by the world-famous golf course architect Jack Nicklaus? We’ll have to wait and see. We will listen to the new plans and, if they fit within the spatial vision, we will give a positive recommendation.’
Coudyser is a member of the N-VA, the right-wing liberal party to which the Belgian Prime Minister, Bart de Wever, also belongs. Her arrival has heralded a new era in Knokke. From 1979 to 2021, the charismatic Leopold Lippens ‘ruled’ over Knokke; he was a scion of the noble family that has owned land in the area since the eighteenth century, and the son of Léon Lippens, who was also mayor of Knokke. Over the course of forty years, the charismatic Leopold Lippens transformed the quiet fishing village into a haven for the rich and famous, by consistently prioritising quality. It is fair to say that it is partly thanks to him that Knokke’s main shopping street, the Kustlaan, is home to branches of Natan, Delvaux, Rolex, Longchamp, Chanel, Hermès and Louis Vuitton.
However, following his death, all manner of irregularities came to light, such as the fact that, over a ten-year period, the council had booked €2.4 million’s worth of lease cars through a company owned by one of the aldermen. The council’s accounts also turned out to be a shambles. The supervisory body Audit Vlaanderen intervened and placed the municipality of Knokke-Heist under enhanced supervision.
Coudyser cannot comment on the charges against certain councillors, as these are still before the courts. He can, however, speak about the customs in Knokke politics. Coudyser: ‘A culture of“laissez-faire, laissez-passer”haddeveloped, for which we perhaps shouldn’t blame anyone, but standards in politics have changed. That hadn’t quite sunk in here yet.’
In Belgium, the role of mayor is a much more political one than in the Netherlands. The person who receives the most preferential votes within the winning party after the elections becomes mayor. For years, Coudyser fought from the opposition benches against Lippens’ monopoly and what she described as the ‘systemic crisis’ and ‘total erosion of standards’ in Knokke politics.
Now that she is mayor herself, she says: ‘It’s incomprehensible now, but that entanglement of interests was the spirit of the times. Everyone accepted it, including the people of Knokke-Heist. Because you have to admit: Lippens put Knokke-Heist on the international map. No other coastal municipality can match our DNA, thanks to well-thought-out urban development and well-thought-out tourism development. And always with respect for the residents.’
The new council is therefore not breaking with Lippens’ policies, but is continuing along the same path, she says. Knokke, for example, is the only municipality in Belgium that does not levy a supplementary general income tax (APB) on residents, but does impose a tourist tax on people with a second home. (To clarify: Knokke-Heist itself does not benefit from the booming property market in the municipality. Belgian municipalities do not levy property tax. Instead, they receive a fixed amount from the federal government for every property owner.)
That was good policy on Lippens’ part, says Coudyser. ‘We have 15,000 homes here occupied by people who are either homeowners or tenants. These are the people who work in the care sector or in tourism. People who keep our economy going. We want to support them. Between 16,500 and 17,000 homes are second homes. When the owner is there, they’re there. Otherwise, the property stands empty. We have so many more residents in our area during the summer months that we need to adapt our sports and cultural provision, as well as police and ambulance services, accordingly. Second-home owners must contribute to this. They are the ones who shop in the luxury boutiques and dine at Michelin-starred restaurants.’
An ambitious project is set to begin in September: the refurbishment of the Casino, a listed building dating from 1929 on the beach, where Frank Sinatra, Joséphine Baker and Edith Piaf once performed. It houses a circular hall featuring world-famous frescoes by the painter René Magritte. The plans are grand, and the renovation is on a commensurate scale. It is expected to be completed in 2033.
Everyone in Knokke is ambitious, says Dewulf. ‘We don’t sell flats, but the Knokke brand,’ he says. ‘Knokke is the glue that holds everything together here; it’s what everyone lives off. Otherwise, property wouldn’t be so expensive and we’d earn less money.’
There is still room for improvement, he says, because in his view Knokke is not yet truly international. ‘In Monaco, Marbella or on the Côte d’Azur, 75 per cent of residents are foreigners. In Knokke, the ratio of Belgians to foreigners is exactly the other way round.’ But Dewulf is optimistic. Knokke itself isn’t getting any bigger. But the wealthy elite is growing.
Dewulf: ‘If we have two flats for sale, one for €500,000 and one for €1.5 million, and they’re both correctly priced, there’s a good chance I’ll sell the €1.5 million one first. You don’t buy something like that with your last bit of money. People with a bit of money are afraid – of Covid, of AI, of the Russians, afraid of losing their good jobs. Truly wealthy people aren’t afraid anymore. They want something that nobody else has. It’s always been that way.’
