Line 40 is the calculation of full price including studies, registration and VAT as I said before.
Then options are excluded of this (first arrow of picture). line 47.
Then it is based on that new price that the price m² brut is fixed. Line 54.
Then in the example, starting line 57, you see the options are added back at initial price. This means the studies, registration and VAT on these are in reality carried by the whole group. We could discud if this is fair though.
Hope it’s clear. If not, we can do a videocall tomorrow
This is the file that we use to calculate the surface of our units. The resulting number is then multiplied by 1.25 to get the gross number of square meters, and then by 4000 to estimate the cost of the unit (see The confesseur process).
In line 40 of the size calculator the terrace is included, which is set at 7 m² as a default (because it’s sort of mandatory). The price of the terrace is 1500 euro / m² however (and not 4000), so that means we are adding up square meters with a different price, which would mean that people would be overestimating the cost of their unit by roughly 20.000. This seems like an error to me, so I would be grateful if somebody in Team Building could look into that and correct it if needed.
The owner of the form is Jolan. He added me as an editor, so I was in turn able to add you, Lie, as an editor. Can you check you have enough permissions to do what you want to do?
[quote=“Lee, post:26, topic:18575”] I’m all for it, but I am not sure I understand what we would be trying to achieve by re-doing it?
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I was thinking that it would be good to have an overall idea of the mean size of the appartements to be able to calculate a more accurate estimate.
Which means doing the survey for the last intakes.
But also some people may have changed their apparment size since we did the last survey… Maybe not the majority though, so we could just re-do it for the people who did change…
I see what you mean. I think it’s just a matter of matching the size estimation and the new price estimate . I think that actually we should update the post that you made at some point about calculating the price of your apartment, it would be the easiest way to make things clear I think. And change the size estimator a bit.
I can look into it tomorrow.
Would it be ok for you to keep this for the next Team Coordination meeting?
I’m suggesting this because there is a link with Team Finance’s work. That is, my dad reports 1) that people struggle to estimate the precise size of their apartments (it’s very abstract), and 2) that he thinks that the suggested surfaces in the size calculator can be smaller.
Based on all this, I think the following needs to be done:
Remove line 40 from the size calculator
Update the post on how to calculate the cost of a unit (add x times 1500 for the terrace)
Have another look at the size calculator and see whether surfaces can be smaller
When everything is corrected and fine-tuned, launch the survey again, for everybody who wants to?
So that’s a whole list of things, and it’s probably not complete and/or what we want to decide together, hence my suggestion to take it up at the Coordination meeting. Works?
Ok, I see your point.
It feels to me that a lot of it could be done online ( at least the research part). But you have a better oversight, so happy to go with your plan, no problem!
In any case, here are a few things to note:
As reported in the “small units” post, there are some elements about this issue in the règlement régional d’urbanisme > normes d’habitabilité :
So I guess the only thing that is left to research is the “douche + toilettes”
I asked this to the architects a while ago, and I think they said it could be calculated from the RRU, but a rough estimation of the minimum surface would be :
35m2 for a studio
55m2 for a 1 bed room appartment
70-75m2 for a 2 bedrooms appartment
90m2 for a 3 bedrooms appartment
110m2 for a 4 bedrooms appartment
It’s not 100% clear in my notes, but I think this is for the Casco (brut) surface, which would make sense as in the post about small units, you report a min size of 28m2 net (so 35m2 brut) for a studio. Maybe something to check.
Organisation: I’m totally fine with whatever works. On second reflection we may indeed not need the entire Coordination Group, so if you want to go ahead, please don’t hesitate.
Net or brut: I am almost 100% sure it’s net
Toilets and shower: my guess is that there are no minima, because:
Otherwise it would have been mentioned in the RRU
During one of the visits, I remember the architects saying something like “of course you can have a toilet of 1 m², but then you’ve got to be prepared to be with your knees against the door”. Did somebody back then not even make a joke about the fact that this is often the case in Belgium?
Toilets: I am almost sure though that for apartments there is a requirement that there is a door between the living room and the door of the toilet (otherwise it is considered as a studio)
Minimum surface areas that you suggest: shall I make an edit to the “small units” post?
Ok, I can look at it! I think you have summarized it already above, so I’ll do that but I’ll check if there are other details to change or not, and will check in before changing everything
No, I agree, there are no official minima. But I was wondering what is the “physical” minimum for each of them. So that we can put that in the size estimation…
From what I can see, the minimum minimum is probably 1,5 - 2m2 for shower and toilets (see this site), and probably 1,5 for just shower (see photo 2 of the diaporama) and 1 for toilets (see joke!).
It might be a good idea, and maybe also an edit in the “how to calculate” the price of your appartment post, as people might need to refer to that to calculate how much square meters they need.
Looking at the numbers again though, I am wondering if they really are the minimum minimum?
For example for a 2 bed-rooms, based on the RRU, the minimum would be 51m2 for kitchen+living+ bed rooms, then add 4m2 for the ‘local technique’, it goes up to 55m2. Then you have to add bathroom so let’s say 57m2. Then there is only corridors left, but I don’t think it does add up to 13m2, does it?
I couldn"t find info online on what is the minimum size for an appartment, and the corridor question is a bit tricky…
So could it be an idea to check with the architects?? We could ask them how much do we have to account for for corridors, and/or whether the numbers that I have are for “standard” appartments, but could be reduced for the “minimum” size.
(Quoting myself! Giggles!)
So I’ve prepared a document with the changes I think need to happen to the size calculation and the confesseur post/new post (internal link).
Pinging @ugne : maybe we have a phone call to see what we have to coordinate on? @Lee if you already have suggestions, let us know!
As expected for the price calculation, it make quite a signicant difference: for the studio of 30m2 net with a garage, 6m2 terrace, and a 6m2 cave, the price goes from 155.000 to 230.000 euros (and I think that in the first estimate, the terrace and the cave were bigger).
@Lee, @Julien : are you saying that these numbers are net numbers? I’m not sure I understand. It would make more sense that they are brut no?? Because if it is reported in the small unit post that the minimum size is 28m2 net for a studio, and that matches to 35m2 gross, which is the number that I have…
@Sophie_B : could you please take care of this? Thanks!
The minimum given by the RRU are net square meters or as the RRU says “surface minimal de plancher”
The architects majorate those with 20% to get the brut square meters, this is with walls included. They do this because the site we’ll find will have to host the walls too of course (if I express me good )
Going really into the nitty gritty, I would add the following recommendation:
Make a note that a parking spot will not be mandatory, and that we’ll find a solution to share the burden of the total number of mandatory parking spots.
Recommend that people add a terrace space that equals 10% of the surface of their unit (net), so 7 m² of terrace for a unit of 70 m² net, with a minimum of 5 m². We’d need to check the details with the architects, but there are indications that this is going to become mandatory (see e.g. this article in Bruzz).
It’s just a suggestion of course, but can it be an option to create a separate post on how to estimate the surface of our units? This could include several suggestions, like e.g.
The minima imposed by the RRU
The size calculator (with a link)
The minima as calculated above
Have a look on websites like Immoweb, and get a feel for the size of different apartments
Have a look at the apartments of other Reeflings.
On the last point: I measured the different rooms of my apartment and I’d be happy to share this in a dedicated post. This should make it easier to see what a 70 m² unit looks like (mine), and that it’s easy to imagine to cut out 20 m² in total. And then if maybe a couple more people join in, we’ll become experts at estimating surfaces and feeling confident about what we could live with?
This is not a detail, so I’m grateful you insist. I looked at the “small units” post again and scrolled through the RRU once more, and I think that my conclusion is that the “small units” post is confusing, in that it presents units of 35 and 55 m² net (studio and one-bedroom apartment), but that based on the RRU these could actually be smaller, such that 35 and 55 m² become the gross surfaces.
That being said, in the correspondence that Julien had with the architects on the financial estimate, at some point they recommend us to stick with net surfaces, because this is what is commonly used, and also what’s going to go in the notary’s deeds. So that would mean that in the calculation guidance we keep things as they are, i.e. we make people estimate the net surface, then have them multiply that by 1.25 to arrive to gross m², and then multiply that by a 4000 +/- 10%. Does that make sense?
Hey!
Thanks for your answer!
I understand the confusion no!
So what I understand and think we can do is this:
The numbers that I have at the moment could indeed be the minimum gross surface for an apartment (and I personally wonder if they could be less, we’ve asked the architects about that), but for clarity purposes, we should include net numbers in the new post on estimating the size of the appartment.
So the post would become:
Net surfaces for minimum size
@Julien: this is exactly the reason why we insist so much on documenting everything on the forum. This way we don’t loose information that is dug deep into the mailbox.
(if I express me good 
)
. Giggle feedback loop!
