Real estate: rising prices and insufficient supply are becoming alarming in coastal areas

For Denis Tudoux, West Regional Director (Pays de la Loire, Brittany and Centre) SUITABILITY: “Because of their growing attractiveness, rising prices and insufficient supply are becoming alarming in coastal areas. This is the finding of the study "Urban exodus, a myth, realities: impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on residential mobility"[1]: the post-Covid migration balances (March 2020-March 2022) put highlight the strong residential attractiveness of the coasts, and in particular of the Atlantic coast: a dynamic that also affected the first or even second retro-coastal rings. »

The impacts on the real estate markets are known:

• high prices, especially for properties close to or benefiting from sea views;
• a smaller stock of ordinary rental housing, due to increased competition from more profitable seasonal rentals. This concerns both private housing (20,3% of main residences against 25,6% nationally) and social housing (12,1% against 14,7%)[2]

For Denis Tudoux, West Regional Director (Pays de la Loire, Brittany and Centre) SUITABILITY: “Local households, as a result, struggle to access a rental or home ownership property and are forced either to live in accommodation that does not or little correspond to their needs, or to move away from their place of work. »

Influx of seniors, but also of investors and affluent assets with dual residence

The tension in the real estate markets is mainly linked to a supply/demand imbalance, but it is aggravated by a differential in budgetary capacities between endogenous and exogenous households. Ready to buy real estate at high valuations, these fall into three main categories:

• seniors, attracted by the prospect of a "retirement in the sun", often able to buy "cash" thanks to a contribution from the resale of one or more other goods;
• investors for furnished rentals (seasonal or not), with a view to pure profitability, sometimes over very short periods of time;
• senior managers and qualified professionals, who combine telework and great mobility (one to three long-distance shuttles per week and business trips). They keep their main residence in Ile-de-France or in a metropolis and often make "coup de coeur" purchases.

Formidable competition from furnished rentals

The financial advantages of furnished rentals compared to bare rentals are largely in favor of the former.

Higher rent, often paid in advance. In Saint-Malo, for example, a furnished 3-bedroom apartment near the beaches can be rented on a long-term lease (1 year) between 1.600 and 1.800€/month (all charges included), while the same unfurnished property will be offered between 700 and €750/month.

Superior profitability, even if turnover is often faster, vacancy periods can be extremely reduced, especially in medium-sized towns where tenants can successively be students (from September to May), tourists (June to August), even workers throughout the year (posted or seasonal workers, on professional mobility, etc.).

More advantageous taxation in LMNP (non-professional furnished rental), thanks to a reduction of 50% of rental income in micro-BIC or a deduction of costs and charges in the real regime (compared to 30% in bare rental).

The risks linked to climate change are still largely underestimated

As on the whole of the national territory, the prices of housing in the coastal areas have experienced a significant increase in one year.

• In new buildings: nearly €5.550/m² including parking space in 2022, compared to just under €5.300/m² in 2021, i.e. + 5% (similar to the national average)[3]
• In the old: more than €4.500 in 2022 against nearly €4.100/m² in 2021, i.e. + 11% (+ 15% nationally)[4]

These developments clearly do not take into account the risks associated with climate change. Geographer Eugénie Cazaux from UBO (University of Western Brittany), in her thesis defended at the end of 2022, also highlighted the short-term vision of certain buyers of properties threatened by risks linked to coastal erosion or to submersion. And even if, since January 1, 2023, real estate advertisements (rental or sale) must mention these risks, the appetite for these properties does not weaken.

However, in addition to the loss of value of the goods over time, there is the problem of their insurability. In some overseas territories, insurance companies are beginning to refuse to cover certain claims, or subject to the payment of unsustainable premiums.

A beginning of reflection, while waiting for local strategies to be built

Are the coastal sectors doomed to suffer from their attractiveness and to be caught between the exclusion of a large part of local households and the risk of climatic obsolescence of part of their housing stock?

For Denis Tudoux, West Regional Director (Pays de la Loire, Brittany and Centre) SUITABILITY: “This question echoes the work of the interministerial mission to combat the attrition of main residences in tourist areas (launched in February 2022). It made its first proposals at the beginning of spring: reflection on the tax measures linked to furnished tourist rentals, minimum energy performance obligation for short-term rentals, which are currently limited to rentals in main residences. »

More recently, faced with the chronic lack of permanent housing in tourist areas, the Government announced on March 23 a working approach with certain local authorities, in order to identify and mobilize new tools (on the model of the TPSF approach ( Land Sobriety Pilot Territories)).

In fact, local authorities have the means to act.

• Supervise short-term seasonal rentals: limitation of the number of seasonal dwellings per household (with a principle of compensation beyond 2 for example), obligation to declare and authorize a change of use, increase in tourist taxes.
• Promote the production of "affordable" housing in the broad sense (rental or home ownership), by reserving it in part for local workers who participate in the economic life of the territory. This involves building a proactive land strategy mobilizing a large network of partners (SPL, EPF, OFS, etc.).
• Imagine lightweight accommodation solutions or proto-habitat, easily assembled and disassembled, expandable and modular and designed with ecological materials (like the HOUMMI concept: HOUsing, Mobile, Modular, Innovation).

It would no doubt also be appropriate, as recommended by several bodies[5], to facilitate access for local authorities to the new status of AOH (housing organizing authority), which gives them additional leeway in terms of housing policy, and whose prerogatives some would like to see strengthened and expanded (particularly in terms of sources of funding and taxation).

[1] Published mid-February 2023 and financed by the Plan urbanisme construction architecture (Puca)/Popsu and the French Rural Network

[2] Source: INSEE RGP 2019

[3] Source: ADEQUATION promotion observatory

[4] Source: partial DVF data reworked by ADEQUATION dated 30/06/2022

[5] Report of the Economic Affairs Committee of the National Assembly of 12/04 (as part of the fact-finding mission on the means of lowering housing prices in tense areas, outside Île-de-France) , report of the working group "Reconciling France with the act of building" (within the framework of the CNR - National Council for Refoundation - Housing).