Can you still afford a house?
Rich interactive real estate tool that calculates how much house you can afford based on your net salary and savings. With adjustable loan parameters, housing preferences, neighboring municipality comparison, overview map and breakdowns per housing characteristic.
Houses have become significantly less affordable in recent years, especially for first-time buyers. This tool lets readers calculate their maximum purchase price based on their net salary and savings, then shows what percentage of homes in their municipality falls within that budget (based on data from real estate platform Zimmo).
The budget is not fixed: an expandable budget calculator lets the reader adjust loan parameters, showing live how each adjustment affects the maximum budget. Readers can also specify housing preferences, after which the results page always shows two figures side by side: how many homes are affordable, and how many of those also match all preferences.
The results page itself is built from five layers. A D3 histogram compares the municipality's price distribution with all of Flanders and Brussels. A neighboring municipality table ranks surrounding municipalities by affordability. An interactive choropleth map of the province colors all municipalities by affordability, with a dual top-5 (within budget and matching preferences). Finally, detailed charts break down the supply by housing type, outdoor space, bedrooms, energy label and surface area.
- Andy Stevens Design & development
- Dries De Smet Data analysis