Rental investors, a species not even on the verge of extinction but already almost extinct. This is the observation drawn up by the Federation of promoters real estate (FPI), this Thursday, November 13, during its quarterly economic update. In the third quarter of 2025, sales of new housing to individual investors, who buy not to house but to rent, collapsed by 55%, compared to the third quarter of 2024.
Thus falling to 2,183 units, “either 6.5 times less than an ordinary quarter»underlines Pascal Boulanger, president of the FPI, they only represent 20% of sales to individuals, compared to around 50% usually. Over the first nine months of 2025, sales to rental investors collapsed by almost 50%, to 7,272 units, while those to future owner-occupiers rebounded by 9%, to 30,693 homes.
Rental investment: “We need a powerful tax status for the private landlord in the 2026 budget, not a sticking plaster!”
1 in 5 construction programs withdrawn from the market
“We will be at less than 10,000 sales to rental investors over the entire yearcompared to 60,000 usually, it’s dramatic”predicts Didier Bellier-Ganière, general delegate of the FPI. Dramatic because when a developer begins to market a construction program, the first to take an interest in it are generally rental investors, before social landlords and owner-occupiers. It is therefore thanks to sales to rental investors that developers can display the marketing quotas required by their banks to allow them to launch construction sites.
Otherwise, the promoters withdraw their operations from the market. In the third trimester, one operation in five was thus withdrawnor a proportion of 20%, compared to only 3% to 4% in normal times. “It’s huge, we’ve never seen thatbreathes Pascal Boulanger. Before, there were a few withdrawals of operations due to protracted appeals or poorly estimated construction costs, but it was never due to commercial problems.”
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Create a tax status for the private lessor to replace Pinel
For Didier Bellier-Ganière, there is no doubt, it is because of “there elimination of the Pinel tax advantageJanuary 1, 2025, that rental investors have almost disappeared”. It must be said that in 40 years, this is the first time that a rental investment system has been abolished without a successor having been found. However, with the 20% VAT on sales of new homes which all buyers must pay, and the growing weight of property taxes, “rental investment is taxed too much”judge Pascal Boulanger.
And the boss of the FPI insisted: “If there is not something to compensate for this (like Pinel), it does not work, individuals do not invest.” Pascal Boulanger therefore places all his hopes in the creation of a long-term tax status of the rental investora sea serpent about 10 years old but which has never been so close to hatching, thanks to amendments to the finance bill for 2026 carried by the government and parliamentarians, which should be examined between this Thursday and Sundayfrom ministerial source.
