While the real estate sector is collapsing, giants like Nexity and Vinci have announced that they are considering job cuts in the coming months.
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Will real estate developers finally come out of the red after a catastrophic 2023? The giants Nexity and Vinci have announced in recent days that they are considering job cuts. The market has in fact collapsed since Covid-19 with the rise in interest rates, inflation and the decline in public procurement. The sector is trying as best it can to rebuild itself.
Projects postponed, stopped or even canceled. The figures speak for themselves, for Pascal Boulanger. He is president of the Federation of Real Estate Developers (FPI), which brings together 700 members: “A normal year, the FPI releases around 165,000 housing units. In 2022 we drop to 123,000 and in 2023, we make 94,000. It’s been a year and a half since I attracted the attention of the public authorities by saying that it will There could be disasters. Unfortunately, I was right…”he regrets.
A brake on the issuance of building permits?
If the majors in the sector, such as Nexity or Vinci, plan to reduce payroll, the smaller companies seem, for the moment, more spared. Like Greencity real estate, based in Toulouse, 1,700 homes concluded last year. Its president Stéphane Aubay highlights strategic choices: he reduced prices, in particular, to sell more. Despite falling interest rates, he remains cautious going forward: “We have the municipal elections in 2026. We fear a brake on the issuance of building permits because it is not necessarily good for a mayor who is elected to have cranes everywhere in his city at the time of the elections.”
The crisis, far from being over, risks leading to 300,000 job cuts for the coming year and a half according to the Federation of Real Estate Developers. Particularly in construction, notary or architect offices: the entire real estate sector is concerned.
“We were forced to limit salary costs”
Hadrien Colmant confirms this, he is associate general director of Inovefa, a service provider for real estate developers: “All the investments we could have had, the renewal of the IT equipment, the team management seminars etc., on these costs, we really cut. Like many people in the profession, we were also obliged to limit salary costs. So there are departures which have not been replaced. We notably had three retirements last year which we have not replaced.” Yet his business maintained activity last year. The sector’s fear is also to see skills disappear, with the departure of qualified employees who will have to be replaced by new trained people, which takes time.