While price increases are flirting with 5% over one year, shopping or refueling costs more. But Christophe Robert, the general delegate of the Abbé Pierre Foundation, alerted RMC to another item of expenditure which could well increase: “As the rents are indexed, in any case the rent reference index which allows the rent increases, is indexed to inflation. There will be an increase in the rents.”
Whether in private or social housing, rents should indeed increase in the coming months. In any case, the mechanism for revising them upwards allows it. This is the reference index for rents, calculated each quarter by INSEE, which is based on the evolution of consumer prices over one year. In other words: when inflation rises, as is the case today, the index also rises and your landlord has the right, on each anniversary date of your lease, to increase your rent by the same amount.
For the first quarter of this year, the rise in the index is almost 2.5%. Such an increase had not happened since 2008. Concretely, if you pay 600 euros in rent today, that’s about fifteen euros more each month. And this upward trend is expected to continue. Consumer associations fear up to 5% inflation for the benchmark index in the coming months.
To avoid this situation, several associations are calling for measures, in particular a rent freeze on July 1 for one year. The National Housing Confederation or the CLCV are warning in particular of the situation of low-income households who already devote more than a third of their income to housing. A figure confirmed by INSEE.
For now, discussions are still ongoing with the government. We will know in the coming weeks whether or not this measure is retained in the bill on purchasing power which will be presented after the legislative elections.