The Alliance for Housing addresses 7 urgent measures to the government for the 2025 Finance Bill

Appointments that are going in the right direction

At the beginning of this autumn, the Prime Minister has chosen to appoint a full-time Minister of Housing. All stakeholders in the sector have welcomed the appointment of Valérie Létard given her commitment to the subject and her previous positions.

In the current political context, fragmented and even divided, the subject of housing can indeed bring people together. Every citizen is concerned and all territories are mobilized.

There is an urgent need to respond to the predicted crisis, which has been confirmed, because the feeling of being downgraded is setting in for some and the consequences on the production apparatus are seriously jeopardizing a peaceful recovery.

The Housing Alliance has solutions

Seven measures must be enacted in the 2025 Finance Bill for rapid implementation (because the mechanisms already exist):

1. a reestablishment of a universal zero-rate loan (PTZ), everywhere and for all urban forms, or of a loan at a preferential rate on the same principle, with long repayment deferrals;
2. an extension of the “Pinel” in its 2022 version and reopened to new homes, due to lack of sufficient time to develop and implement another system;
3. a shock in terms of social housing production by removing the RLS;
4. maintaining aid for energy renovation in 2025, particularly MaPrimeRénov' under its current conditions;
5. maintaining the system intended for social landlords, the violent reduction of which seems incomprehensible given the needs and financial balances;
6. the necessary adaptations of the regulations to promote “the sale in the future state of renovation” of the most energy-intensive housing;
7. a shift in the upcoming stages of RE2020, which are in any case 7 years ahead of European regulations, in order to avoid a new regulatory inflation shock from 2025.

The Alliance is not unaware of the country's budgetary situation, but the economic and, for some, fiscal repercussions of these measures make them possible. Because, contrary to the shortcuts mentioned by some who only look at the "expenditure" column of the budget, it must be remembered that a well-oriented real estate activity also represents positive compensation for the Nation. It must also be remembered that transfer taxes contribute to the social policies of the departments and that their fall will have negative consequences on the closing of solidarity budgets.

A social utility

Beyond the financial aspects, all of these systems prove useful to the territories for several reasons.

Firstly, the segmentation of subjects is detrimental to housing policy. It is necessary to integrate the complementarity of offers to respond to the diversity of needs (social rental, private rental, home ownership, new builds, renovation) and their interdependence.

Secondly, these seven measures would create a volume effect in all territories and recreate confidence, which is essential in the current context. The French and professionals need visibility and readability to invest.

Thirdly, housing is part of employment policy. Some young people who have finished their studies, are unemployed or employed and are now stuck in their career paths, while others refuse a job for fear of not finding housing. The employment-housing link must once again constitute a major axis of regional planning policy. There will be no reindustrialization without a proactive housing policy. We see this in Dunkirk, Saint-Nazaire, Aurillac or in areas wrongly described as "relaxed" in terms of housing.

The long time

Housing is a subject that takes time. Unlike a single-family home, for which only six to eight months elapse between signing the contract and construction work begins, collective housing for which planning permission is granted in 2024 will not be made available to a tenant or buyer until 2029 at the earliest. How can we ignore this reality?

Thus, beyond the cyclical emergency, the construction-real estate sector is ready to contribute to the development of structural measures and recommends stability of the rules in the medium term. For example, it is no longer possible for the future of the sector to be decided every year within the framework of draft finance laws. A five-year programming law is essential.

The simplification of administrative procedures, often announced and always postponed, must be vigorously implemented. The hopes raised by the bills presented in the first half of the year were swept away by the dissolution.

Professionals are also waiting for a real evaluation process, because housing assistance is too easily criticized without a robust analysis. Given the commitments that had been made, it is important to carry out real partnership work on the "private landlord status".

As for zoning, here again, minimal changes do not make a policy. These zonings no longer correspond to lived realities. In-depth work is required and professionals are ready to work on it.

Because the construction-real estate sector is a strategic sector, with jobs that cannot be relocated, the Alliance for Housing will continue to have a vision so that housing policy can strongly regain the light it deserves given its fundamental role in preserving social cohesion.

Illustrative image of the article via Depositphotos.com.