New real estate: an unexpected price of prices is looming for 2025

In 2024, new real estate prices finally stopped increasing, to stabilize at 5,000 euros per square meter, on average. But Pascal Boulanger, president of the Federation of Real Estate Promoters, is “afraid that they are going upwards”.

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The charm of the old, very little for you, who prefer the energy performance of a new accommodation and the almost certainty of the absence of renovation work for several years. After two and a half years of a real estate crisis marked by the outbreak of credit rates, the planets seem today aligned to allow you to realize your dream of buying a new apartment. The rates have been falling regularly for more than a year and the prices of new apartments have ceased to increase in 2024, for Stabilize nearly 5,000 euros per square meteron average, according to the data presented by the Federation of Real Estate Promoters (FPI) this Thursday, February 13.

An average that masks important regional disparities. Of the 26 agglomerations analyzed by the FPI, 17 saw their prices fall last year, compared to 2023. Some in low proportions, between -0.4% and -3%, like Brest, Toulouse, Orléans, Lille, Annecy, Lyon or even Ile-de-France. Others accuse more severe price reductions, in a range of -5% at -8%, such as Tours, Montpellier, Le Havre or Laval.

New prices that can hardly drop

Developments in any case very far from “”The 15% drop in new real estate prices pronounced by the Elysée and Matignon at the start of the crisis,, underlines Pascal Boulanger, president of the FPI. They were convinced that, faced with the fall in sales, the promoters would have no choice but to lower their prices considerably. However, we have always objected to them that it was impossible because the prices of new real estate are technical prices ”. Understand that, unlike the old market, The prices of the new do not obey the law of supply and demand alone housing. They also depend on the costs of land, rare therefore expensive, construction materials, which remain expensive since the supply difficulties caused by post-Cavid recovery and the breakdown of the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, new regulations environmental and taxation, with 20% VAT on new housing.

“A former director of economic services at Matignon was convinced that the promoters gave off margins of 25 to 35%. I replied that with all these costs, Our margins actually around 5 to 6%. Impossible, therefore, to lower our selling prices by 15%! Even impossible to lower them because, below 5 to 6% margin, our banks refuse to give us the financial guarantee of work completion“Explains Pascal Boulanger.

The fear that prices increase again

With the sales resumption Who seems to begin, the president of the FPI therefore feeds a fear today: “I am afraid that prices go upwards.” The number of new housing reserved by individuals to occupy them, not to invest in them, has indeed jumped 18.2% in the fourth quarter of 2024, over one year, at 9,333 units, a volume which remains very low. “”There will be a recovery. The promoters will therefore go again in search of land, in a context of rarity of building authorizations, especially as the municipal elections approached, upstream of the mayors traditionally deliver less building permits. At the same time, the recovery will lead the promoters to hire in turn, the sector that has lost around 6,000 employees in two years of crisis. All this will cause inflation of the prices of land and wages, which promoters will have to pass on their selling prices in order to maintain their margins ”explains Pascal Boulanger.

Without forgetting the new environmental regulations of new buildings, the RE2020, which “Apply to an increasing number of operations”underlines Didier Bellier Ganière, general delegate of the FPI. Regulations that adds the construction of new housing from 5 to 10%.