Tribune. As part of the examination of the bill relating to differentiation, decentralization, deconcentration (3DS), the Senate adopted the extension of the Solidarity and Urban Renewal (SRU) system until 2025 and other amendments aimed at to relax the obligations of municipalities. This bill, voted on Tuesday, July 21, puts access to housing back at the heart of the discussions.
After a year and a half of the health crisis, the French real estate landscape is more fractured and uneven than ever. From 2019, in just one year, part of the French have completely redesigned the property mapping. One of the causes is teleworking, which has atomized the market by accelerating migration. Never had such an upheaval occurred visibly in such a significant way.
Greener regions, medium-sized towns or villages, have never attracted the French in search of a “gentler” way of life so much. They have managed the feat of rebalancing the real estate market a little. In full confinement, the executives whose function allowed them to work remotely suddenly had the opportunity to create new real estate projects.
A modification of habitat uses
Some have taken advantage of this mobility to settle in the countryside full time. Others have adopted the bi-residence, an ideal compromise between the experience of the countryside and its city pied-à-terre. Great luxury! Good news for the secondary markets which have recovered, taking advantage of this new dynamic.
More generally, we are witnessing a change in the uses and consumption of housing: the real estate cycle could be shortened (from 7/8 years to 4/5 years), at the same rate as that of careers. Real estate remains a strong commitment, but today corresponds more to a “moment of life” than a “life project”. City dwellers are no longer afraid to take the plunge, with the possibility of going back.
However, this improvement is only the tip of the iceberg. In these less strained markets, only profiles with sufficient material and financial resources have been able to choose to change their living environment. The remoteness, here, is not a marginalization in the peripheries for economic reasons, but a consented decision.
Communities must perpetuate the attractiveness of their territory
Which can create perverse effects. Let us not reproduce in these new markets the Paris-West Coast effect, where the massive influx of buyers quickly pushed up prices. The risk is measurable: if the real estate divide is shifted and widens, local inhabitants, with more limited purchasing power, will see their access to housing deteriorate. Even if, mechanically, the price of their property will increase, their weaker financial resources will not always allow them to find another property corresponding to their expectations.
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