"It's the worst year in over 50 years": in 2024, only 59,000 homes will be created in France, half as many as normal

By The New Obs with AFP

Published on February 26, 2025 at 2:21 p.m. , updated on February 26, 2025 at 2:37 p.m.

A building under construction in Valencia, November 18, 2024. NICOLAS GUYONNET / HANS LUCAS VIA AFP

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In 2024, France created 59,000 new homes, half as many as two years earlier, a new illustration of the serious crisis shaking new real estate . Excluding the year of Covid , around 125,500 homes were put up for sale per year on average between 2017 and 2022.

In 2024, this figure will only reach 59,014, 29% less than the previous year and almost half as many as in 2022, according to data published this Wednesday, February 26 by the Ministry of Regional Planning.

Individuals reserved 67,906 new homes last year, 5% fewer than in 2023, a year already catastrophic for the production of new homes due to rising construction costs and interest rates that have blocked the property purchase plans of many households.

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The number of reservations is almost 40% below the 2022 level, and is half the 2017-2022 average level.

"The crisis has fueled the crisis"

"Everything is to be thrown away in 2024, it's the worst year in over fifty years and the beginning of our statistics," Pascal Boulanger, president of the Federation of Real Estate Developers, told AFP. "The crisis has fueled the crisis: since we weren't selling, we didn't produce [new housing, editor's note] , so we didn't buy land and we have fewer employees," he continued.

Optimistic for 2025, Pascal Boulanger is nevertheless worried about the restarting of "the machine" which could cause price increases: due to higher salaries "to bring back the 5,000 employees who left the profession" and overbidding on land for sale if all the developers start "all buying land" again.

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In the fourth quarter, the average price per square meter of new apartments marketed was 4,756 euros, a slight increase of 0.5% compared to the previous quarter.

"We don't have any reservations at all anymore"

The number of new homes marketed between October and December rebounded slightly by 6.4% compared to the previous quarter, to 14,335. It was mainly apartments that were put on sale in the last quarter (+8.1% over one quarter), while the number of houses marketed continued to slow, by 15.5%.

Reservations fell by 4.2% in the last quarter compared to the previous one, to 17,122. Private individuals mainly reserved apartments (16,331 dwellings). As for houses, 791 reservations were recorded in the last quarter, 8.9% fewer than in the previous three months. The number of houses reserved falls to a new low since at least 2019.

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The stock of homes offered for sale, which peaked in mid-2023, is being absorbed very slowly: 117,472 homes were available in the last quarter, 3% less than in the previous three months.

"We have plenty of stock because we no longer have any reservations at all, but if reservations resume at a normal speed, we have half as many offers as in a normal year," emphasizes Pascal Boulanger.

Two or three years to “get the machine going again”

The measures included in the 2025 state budget could boost private housing purchases, according to the spokesperson for developers, even if he does not expect to "reach peaks in 2025" . "It will take between two and three years to get the machine going again," warns Pascal Boulanger.

In the territory, the areas with the most shortage of available housing (Paris, a large part of the Île-de-France region, the Côte d'Azur and the border area with Switzerland) accounted for 50.7% of reservations and 47.2% of sales recorded in the fourth quarter.

Other large urban areas with more than 250,000 inhabitants represented 40.4% of reservations and 39.4% of sales.

By The New Obs with AFP