Rent control had a “real but limited” effect in Paris in 2022, according to the Paris Agglomeration Rent Observatory (Olap), for which “more than one in four” newly rented homes is rented. still above the ceiling.
The fact that initial rents – before reletting – being above the ceiling have increased less quickly (1.7% on average) than the rent reference index (2.5%) is “proof of a “undeniable, although modest, effect of rent control”, estimates Olap in its summary communicated to AFP on Tuesday.
The scope of rent control, defined by “contracts signed in 2022”, i.e. some 136,000 move-ins and lease renewals, “represents 37% of the entire unfurnished private rental stock in the capital”, specifies the Oops.
But out of a sample of nearly 500 cases, “69% of move-ins concluded in 2022 with a rent within the range, while 28% rented above the ceiling,” writes Olap. There are therefore “more than one in four homes above the ceiling” in the capital, summarizes Olap.
Paris, the first city to be able to directly control this supervision
Very small areas, where landlords can charge “high rents per square meter while offering an affordable monthly rent”, are particularly affected, with “seven out of ten housing units of less than 20 m2” which exceed the ceiling. During re-rentals, there were “more rents (14%) going above the ceiling than rents (4%) coming back within the range”, also underlines Olap. Olap reminds “that exceeding the ceiling does not necessarily reflect non-compliance with the law” because they “may result from the application of additional rent”.
The rent cap, which prohibits, with exceptions, renting a property beyond a reference rent, is applied in Paris, Lille, Lyon, Villeurbanne, Montpellier, Bordeaux, and in the intermunicipalities of Seine-Saint-Denis Common Plain and East Together. It will soon be implemented in 24 municipalities in the French Basque Country, including Biarritz and Bayonne.
The first city to have applied rent control in 2015 before it was canceled by the courts in 2017 and made its return in mid-2019, Paris has been since January 1 the first to be able to directly control this control.
Reproduction forbidden.