3-Bed Energy-Efficient House by the Vaart Canal – Vacation Home in Balen, Belgium



Driehuizen 101, 2490 Balen, Belgium, Balen (Belgium)
3 Bedrooms · 1 Bathrooms · 140m² Floor area
€525,000
House
No parking
3 Bedrooms
1 Bathrooms
140m²
Garden
No pool
Not furnished
Description
On a still Tuesday morning in Balen, the only sounds drifting through the kitchen window are birdsong and the faint ripple of water from the Vaart canal just beyond the garden fence. No traffic. No crowds. Just the kind of quiet that most people have to travel far to find — and here, it's simply the Tuesday morning.
Driehuizen 101 sits on a wide, sun-filled plot of 1,093 square metres at the end of a dead-end street in one of Balen's most sought-after residential pockets. Built in 2022, this is not a renovation project or a "full of potential" euphemism. It's genuinely move-in ready, finished to a high standard, with an A+ energy label and 24 rooftop solar panels feeding into a home battery system that keeps the electricity bills remarkably close to zero. In an era when energy costs dominate every property conversation across Europe, that's not a footnote — it's a headline.
Step inside and the ground floor opens into a living and dining area that faces the garden. Large windows pull the green of the plot right into the room; late afternoon light comes in low and golden in the summer months and on winter weekends the place still feels alive with natural brightness. The kitchen runs along one wall with quality appliances and storage that's been thought through properly — deep drawers, a full-size oven, the kind of setup where you can actually cook rather than just heat things up. Two terraces extend from the ground floor, one catching the morning sun, the other shaded by early evening. Pick your mood.
Upstairs, the three bedrooms all overlook the surrounding greenery. None of them feels like a compromise. The main bathroom has a double washbasin, a walk-in shower, and finishes that lean toward considered rather than showy. There's also a separate guest toilet on the ground floor. Underneath it all, a full basement runs the length of the house — currently clean and dry, used for storage, but equally convertible into a studio space, a proper home gym, or a hobby room. The bones are there.
Now, a word about Balen itself. It doesn't feature on many tourist maps, and that's honestly part of the point. This is the Kempen region of Antwerp province — flat cycling country, pine forests, heathland, and a network of waterways including the Albert Canal and the Kempense Meren, a cluster of connected lakes that draws swimmers, kayakers, and stand-up paddleboarders from across Belgium and the Netherlands every summer. The Vaart canal, which runs close to the property, links directly into these routes. You can be cycling along the towpath within two minutes of walking out the front door.
The Kempense Meren recreational area, roughly 15 kilometres from the house, offers sandy beaches, sailing clubs, and waterside restaurants where you eat fried fish and drink cold Flemish beer at wooden tables in August. In autumn, the heathland around the nearby Hoge Kempen national park turns a deep copper-purple — it's one of those seasonal shifts that people from flat urban places genuinely don't expect to feel moved by, and then they are. Cycling trails like the Fietsroutenetwerk Kempen cover hundreds of kilometres of well-maintained paths, and the region's annual cycling culture means you're never short of company on the road.
Mol, a ten-minute drive east, has the full range of daily amenities — supermarkets, specialist shops, a weekly market on the Markt square with local cheeses, smoked meats, and seasonal vegetables. Geel, about fifteen minutes west, is larger still, with a hospital, cinema, and a lively café culture centred around the Gasthuisstraat. Antwerp itself is under an hour by car or train, which means world-class dining, the MAS museum, the fashion district around the Nationalestraat, and one of Europe's great old ports are all entirely realistic for a day trip. Brussels is 90 minutes.
For international buyers, the Belgian property market has consistent fundamentals. Foreign nationals face no restrictions on purchasing residential property in Belgium, and the country's legal framework for property transactions is transparent and well-established. This house, given its energy credentials and location in a region with growing recreational appeal, also holds strong short-term rental potential — the Kempen's summer tourism is real and increasing, and a three-bedroom house with a large private garden, canal access, and zero energy costs is exactly what families look for when renting for a week.
The option to purchase an adjacent plot of land is worth noting for buyers who want space to grow — a garage workshop, a kitchen garden, a children's play area that doesn't eat into the existing terrace space. That kind of flexibility is rare on a plot that's already generous.
Key features at a glance:
- 3 bedrooms, 1 main bathroom with double washbasin and walk-in shower, plus separate guest WC
- 140 m² living space across two floors with full basement
- 1,093 m² plot in a quiet, low-traffic cul-de-sac
- A+ energy label — 24 solar panels and home battery system installed
- Heat pump boiler heating system
- Two outdoor terraces, south- and east-facing aspects
- Direct proximity to the Vaart canal and cycling towpath network
- Option to purchase adjacent land for expansion
- Built 2022, move-in ready, no renovation required
- Insect screens fitted to all windows
- 10 minutes to Mol, 15 minutes to Geel, under 60 minutes to Antwerp
- Strong short-term rental appeal in the growing Kempen recreational market
- No foreign ownership restrictions for international buyers in Belgium
- Child-safe dead-end street setting
The Kempen doesn't shout. It doesn't need to. The people who find their way here — and decide to stay, or come back every summer — tend to become quietly, firmly attached to the pace of it. The long cycling days, the canal swimming, the Saturday markets, the way the light sits differently over heathland than over anywhere else in Belgium. Driehuizen 101 is a proper base for all of it: efficient, comfortable, well-positioned, and genuinely ready to live in from day one.
Get in touch with the team at Homestra to arrange a viewing. This one won't need long to find the right buyer.
Details
- Amount of bedrooms
- 3
- Size
- 140m²
- Price per m²
- €3,750
- Garden size
- 1093m²
- Has Garden
- Yes
- Has Parking
- No
- Has Basement
- No
- Condition
- good
- Amount of Bathrooms
- 1
- Has swimming pool
- No
- Property type
- House
- Energy label
Unknown
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