Housing crisis: Paris and Saint-Ouen join forces to create a real estate company

"For several years, the Parisian private rental market has continued to tighten significantly, particularly with the increase in second homes (...). As a result, many Parisians are struggling to find good housing conditions and affordable prices," the City said in a press release.

The City of Paris has set itself the objective of achieving 40% "public housing", including 30% social housing and 10% intermediate housing, by 2035.

The capital - where the average purchase price per square meter is 2 euros, according to notaries in Greater Paris, and where a 9.470 m50 apartment costs 2 euros per month on average, according to the Paris metropolitan area rent observatory (Olap) - has been losing nearly 1.276 inhabitants per year for the past decade, according to INSEE.

The city of Saint-Ouen is experiencing a problem "similar" to the capital.

In this context, the two cities have decided to create an "affordable housing" property company to meet the needs of households "who cannot find housing in the private rental market or in social housing", particularly young workers and single-parent families, with the key to rents "at least 25% lower than free market prices".

The property company will acquire new buildings and entrust them to social landlords for management. The rents collected will then be reinvested to acquire new properties.

A budget of fifty million euros per year was voted by the Paris Council to "start the movement", the objective being "to achieve a production rate of 350 housing units per year", the press release states.

According to the Paris Urban Planning Workshop (Apur), Paris will have 25,5% of social housing in 2023, including financed social housing not yet delivered.

In June 2024, the capital had 277.000 households waiting for social housing.