The new real estate market has entered an unprecedented slowdown spiral. While access to property remains a priority for many households, the production of new housing has been at its lowest level for more than 50 years. In 2024, only 59,000 new dwellings were put up for sale, a decrease of 50 % compared to 2022. Thus, this crisis, much deeper than a simple cyclical slowdown, is the result of a chain of structural and economic factors. Cost of increased construction, increasingly difficult financing, withdrawal from institutional investors: so many elements that slow down a rapid recovery.
An unprecedented collapse of the offer of new housing
The year 2024 marks a turning point for new real estate. According to data from the Ministry of Regional Planning, the annual volume of housing for sale dropped to 59,014 units, against an average of 125,500 per year between 2017 and 2022. A collapse which has its origin in several factors, at the forefront of which the outbreak of construction costs and the rise in interest rates. These elements have made ownership more difficult for households, drastically slowing demand.
The real estate promotion market has also been hit hard. In the absence of sales, the players in the sector have reduced their land acquisitions and stopped a good number of projects. Pascal Boulanger, president of the federation of real estate developers, summary The situation: “The crisis has nourished the crisis: for lack of sales, we did not produce new housing, we have stopped buying land and reduces our workforce”. The direct consequence is a drastic drop in the stock of new projects, with repercussions throughout the sector, from employment to construction times.
Uncertain recovery prospects and a market under tension
If some hope a progressive rebound during this year, experts in the sector are more cautious. The federation of real estate developers specifies “that it will take between two and three years to restore the machine on the way”. This late recovery is explained by several factors, in particular the need to rehire qualified personnel and to reconstruct land stocks. With 5,000 professionals who have left the sector, relaunch production will not be without tensions on wage costs and the availability of labor.
Another major brake: concentration of demand in certain areas. Paris, the Côte d'Azur and the border regions with Switzerland today concentrate 50.7 % of reservations and 47.2 % of sales. A dynamic that further accentuates the imbalance between supply and demand, which leaves many other regions in a situation of wait -and -see. In this context, the budgetary measures of 2025, supposed to relaunch the real estate purchase, will probably not be enough to immediately stop the crisis.
The French real estate market therefore enters a long and uncertain transition phase. If the production of housing is gradually resumed, the available offer will remain much lower than demand for several years. In the absence of a real structural recovery plan, new real estate may remain under tension, with lasting consequences on prices, access to property and the dynamics of large metropolises.
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