Property developers are not hiding their concern over the collapse in the number of new home sales: they fell 20.2% in the first quarter, compared to the same period of 2021. As for reservations, they are also down (29,628 against 37,139 a year earlier). This is not a lack of demand, but a commercial supply that fails to renew itself and remains a third below its level of 2018 or 2019. Stocks are melting and developers are selling in record lead times, 7.7 months on average, compared to the usual 11 or 12.
“The engine stalls, lack of fuel!summarizes Pascal Boulanger, president of the Federation of property developers (FPI). We have never sold so little since 2012, the volume of projects has never been so low and institutional customers, investors, social landlords, have reduced their purchases, due to a lack of projects. The number of housing units sold en bloc is down 31%, while that of unit sales to owner-occupiers is down 8.3%.”he says.
Social landlords also have a hard time getting projects out. “There were 104,800 approvals in 2021, while the minister expected 120,000, and not all of them will be used because the rise in construction costs or certain unsuccessful calls for tenders prevent the start of construction sites, and I anticipate even fewer operations in 2022″, explains Marcel Rogemont, president of the Federation of Public Housing Offices.
Skyrocketing costs
Inflation and the rise in the price of materials – tiles, tiles, metals, wood, PVC, glass, insulation, plaster, paint, glue, adhesive… –, exacerbated by international tensions on energy prices, are causing in fact, inflate construction costs by 15% to 20%, leading to an increase in the final price, for the purchaser, of 7% to 10%.
Another obstacle to construction is increasingly restricted access to credit, for which rates and insurance costs are rising. The solvency of buyers is already weakened by an ever more expensive new square meter: an average of 4,524 euros in the regions, i.e. + 5.8% compared to 2021, and 5,573 euros in Ile-de-France (+ 3 .4%), where, however, a certain ceiling seems to have been reached, according to certain advertisements offering, for example, a kitchen or notary fees.
Even more worrying, for the FPI, is the reluctance of mayors to issue building permits. These authorizations have however, in the first quarter, experienced a burst, to 134,400, or 25% better than in 2021, which the Minister of Housing, Emmanuelle Wargon, then welcomed. “But this increase is artificial, because fueled by a peak in permit applications submitted at the end of 2021, before the entry into force on 1er January 2022, new environmental regulations, known as RE2020, which are much more demanding, predicts Mr. Boulanger. From the second and third quarters, the figure will fall. »
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