developers warn of housing needs

“An urban unthinking. » For the National Union of Developers, which brings together planning professionals, the current housing crisis is partly the result of a lack of political will. The needs have been largely underestimated by the public authorities in recent years, its representatives believe. Estimated at 200,000 per year nationally, it would take at least double that, according to them.

“The last minister appointed was that of housing, which clearly shows that it is not a priority,” underlines Jean Labant, the national administrator of Unam. The public authorities have counted on a drop in demographics, the availability of brownfields and vacant housing. But these are false impressions. The mayors themselves promise to slow down construction to get re-elected. » Unam therefore carried out, in partnership with the Higher School of Real Estate Professions (Espi), a study to “objectivize housing needs”.

Densification

It appears that housing needs increase by 21% each year in New Aquitaine. That is between 44,000 and 48,000 to be built per year. In the Bordeaux metropolitan area, between 8,600 and 9,800 new housing units would need to be produced annually. Developers are suffering from the difficult context for the entire sector. “The real estate crisis has frozen everything,” underlines Unam.

With the sudden rise in rates which brought a halt to credits, developers and promoters alike are experiencing pre-marketing difficulties and lacking liquidity. They are even forced to cancel ongoing operations due to lack of cash, because consumers who still have the possibility of purchasing are fleeing off-plan sales and preferring to turn to existing programs.

Unam thus notes a gap between real needs and political actions and requests urban planning permits to be able to reclassify entire neighborhoods without simply building in hollow areas, by densifying residential areas for example.