Developers are caught between rising material prices and more difficult access to real estate loans.
The sector remains at half mast. Reservations of new housing by individuals with real estate developers continued their decline in the third quarter of 2023, with a fall of 39.7% year-on-year, according to provisional statistics from the Ministry of Ecological Transition published Wednesday, November 15. The number of reservations, which stood at 16,201, a figure that has been falling continuously for six quarters.
The number of new housing units put up for sale by developers follows the same trend, with an annual fall of 34.9%, to 19,371. Developers are caught between, on the one hand, the rise in construction costs, caused by the prices of materials and more demanding environmental standards, and on the other hand the erosion of the purchasing power of buyers, with more difficult access to real estate loans.
-32% in the most tense areas
The outstanding number of homes for sale, that is to say the entire supply that has not yet found a buyer, has reached new heights, with 131,414 homes available. Reservation cancellations represent the equivalent of 24.5% of reservations for the quarter, “a particularly high weight compared to previous years”notes the ministry.
“Block” sales of all or part of programs to major players (social landlords, institutional investors) jumped 20% in one quarter (13,723), the State having asked the Caisse des deposits and consignments (CDC) and Action Logement to buy back programs from developers to support them.
Reservations fell by 32% over one year in the most tense areas (urban area of Paris, cities of Marseille, Lyon, Lille, Montpellier, part of the Mediterranean coast and French Geneva). But their decline is particularly pronounced in zones B1, notably made up of the centers of large cities and overseas departments (-46%), and B2, corresponding to small towns and the outskirts of the largest (-39%).