There is currently 1 house for rent in Gistel, at €1,350 per month. The municipality has 12,178 residents within 42.8 km². Its average age is 42, and women account for 50.3% of the population. Residents are mainly homeowners, at 73%, and average annual net income per person is €18,905. The nationalities recorded are 96.7% Belgian, 0.6% Romanian, 0.5% Bulgarian, 0.2% Polish, 0.2% Iraqi, 0.2% Portuguese, 0.2% Dutch and 1.3% other.
Houses account for 84.8% of dwellings in Gistel, compared with 15.2% in apartment buildings. The wider building mix comprises 35.7% detached houses, farms or castles, 23.7% semi-detached houses and 21.2% terraced houses. Buildings and flat blocks make up 14.4%, commercial houses 3.3% and other types 1.8%. The average home has 5.6 rooms, and buildings date from around 1959. Gistel’s main roads are the N33, N346, N358, N367 and N367c. The A18/E40 entrance is 3 minutes by car from the town centre; the A10/E40 entrance is 9 minutes away.
Public transport includes 6 bus lines. Listed De Lijn services are lines 39, 49, 50, 51 and 52; no metro or tram service is listed. The nearest stations to the centre are Oostende, Zedelgem, Torhout, Diksmuide and Kortemark. Childcare and schools include 6 nurseries, 6 nursery schools, 5 primary schools and 5 secondary schools. Examples named locally are Ieniemini and Ieniemini 2.0, Gemeentelijke Basisschool, Vrije Basisschool - Driespan, Vrije Basisschool Gravenbos, Go!da Vinci Atheneum Koekelare and Sint-Godelievecollege Middenschool. There is 1 OKay and 1 Carrefour supermarket.
No shared bicycles or shared cars are listed in the municipality, and no charging station is listed. Ostend-Bruges International Airport is 11 minutes away by car or 33 minutes by public transport. Gistel’s businesses include 70 hairdressing and beauty-treatment companies, 63 mixed-farming companies and 38 restaurants and mobile food-service businesses. The current house-rental listing is priced at €1,350 per month, while the municipality’s housing stock is predominantly made up of houses.