How far away does the "historic rebound" recorded by the real estate market at the end of the health crisis seem!
[Boursorama] While the aspirations of city dwellers to "go green" were combined with interest rates at record lows, and the generalization of teleworking, the number of transactions literally soared in 2021. Since then, the euphoria has subsided: over the last two years, sales have fallen by 32%, leading to a record increase in real estate agency closures. State of play to date ...
A real estate market impacted by multiple factors
The causes of the real estate sinister are diverse, and worsen by combining... Of course, average interest rates play a major role. After reaching particularly low figures in 2021, they have continued to increase from 1% to 4% (excluding fees, insurance and guarantees) at the beginning of 2024. But this phenomenon is not the only one to seize the market... We should also mention, among others, the construction sector at half-mast, the purchasing power of households which is declining, or the reluctance of banks to grant less and less credit.
Chain consequences
The first consequence of the explosive cocktail described above is obviously a drop in transactions. Their number has fallen by just over 20% since 2020. According to professional projections, it should be around 860,000 transactions at the end of the year (compared to 1,115,000 in 2022). In the spring of 2024, the decline in sales was -32% in two years. Logically, this phenomenon has led to chain reactions: A decrease in prices, which is reflected, especially in old buildings, by an average decrease of 1.8% observed in the 3rd quarter of 2024 (with -1.6% for houses and -2% for apartments).
Less credit, real estate professionals pay for all this in cash! According to the National Federation of Real Estate Agents (FNAIM), 1,120 real estate companies operating with either a real estate agency activity code or a property manager activity code) have closed their doors permanently in the last twelve months. This represents an increase in bankruptcies of 112% over one year and four times more over three years! And the professional body specifies that the peak has not yet been reached... It anticipates 1,400 company liquidations this year, a figure that would be higher than the tidal wave caused by the 2008 subprime crisis, which led to 1,385 agency bankruptcies in one year. Commercial agents are also paying their price: their number has decreased by 15% in one year. While this status had exploded after the post-Covid upturn, these self-employed workers are also going through a dark period. Many of them are starting to retrain, while the number of newcomers is also falling, as evidenced by the number of professional card certificates issued by the Chamber of Commerce and Industry.
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