Property developers are starting to see individual investors return

Several property developers are seeing an increase in housing reservations by individual investors, after their withdrawal from the new housing market last year, according to their quarterly results.

Developer Altarea announced on Tuesday a 54% year-on-year jump in sales of homes to individual investors, representing 270 reservations in the first quarter.

Last week, when publishing its activity figures for the first quarter of 2026, Nexity also reported a 19% increase in reservations made by individual investors compared to the first quarter of 2025, reaching 452 homes.

According to the leading French property developer, these are "the first effects of the Jeanbrun scheme" which remain "not significant over the quarter".

The government has created in the State budget for 2026, adopted in early February, a new tax incentive scheme for rental investment for individuals, called the private landlord status or Jeanbrun scheme.

The real estate sector is counting on this tax advantage to revive investment in new housing, which has been at a standstill since the disappearance of the Pinel tax break at the beginning of 2025.

According to the French Federation of Real Estate Developers (FPI), housing sales to individual investors fell by half in 2025 compared to the previous year. They have even decreased sevenfold in just a few years due to the crisis in the new housing market, followed by the end of the Pinel scheme.

At the developer Kaufman & Broad, which published its results for the quarter from December 2025 to February 2026 in mid-April, sales to individual investors also increased sharply and represent 14% of reservations, compared to 10% in the same period a year earlier.

Across all types of buyers, housing reservations increased by 14% in the first quarter for Altarea, by 1,9% for Kaufman & Broad and declined by 7% for Nexity.

The Altarea group, which is also active in the operation of shopping centers, published a 12,4% decrease in revenue in the first quarter to 381,4 million euros.

These revenues are weighed down by an 11,2% decline in its turnover in the housing division, linked to the marketing of housing from older projects with reduced margins.

Illustrative image of the article via Depositphotos.com.