The building hopes to return to its pre-crisis level of activity in 2022

During its end-of-year press conference, the main building federation announced plans to return the sector to normal for 2022, if, however, the health situation does not worsen.

For the FFB, the context is uncertain due to the multiple unknowns created by the Covid-19 pandemic, but a few strong hypotheses allow us to hope for an almost return to normal for 2022. Thus, a surge of 4,3% of the activity is expected for 2022 but the French Building Federation still forecasts a decrease of 0,9% compared to 2019.

The FFB also expects uneven growth depending on the sector, with, for example, new housing which should experience an increase of 7,3% to the extent that building permits issued and sales "increased by 15% between 2019 and 2021 ", even pushing it beyond its pre-crisis level.

Conversely, the building sector risks seeing a drop in the number of permits granted by 9,1% in individual housing and 6,7% in collective housing.

To explain this decrease, the FFB highlights the significant additional cost of many raw materials such as plastics and their derivatives, certain metal products but also concrete, which can show an increase of up to 15%. In question, the rise in the price of energy increasing by extension the price of production and transport of materials.

The federation is also worried about the application on January 1, 2022 of the RE2020 (environmental regulations for new buildings) which will generate additional costs of 5 to 10% of the price of the construction in the individual.

Regarding collective housing, the FFB highlights the difficulty of obtaining building permits in dense areas from town halls but also the results of sales and sales of apartments in 2021, which is clearly down compared to the same period in 2019.

On the other hand, one of the winners would be the Improvement-Renovation sector which, thanks to MaPrimeRénov ', should reach + 2,7%.

Finally, to ensure the resumption of the building, the FFB asks the government:

immediate payment of receivables from carry back,
to settle the failure of new in a tight zone, in particular with Rebsamen proposals,
the increase in Pinel from 2023 for housing that meets the extra regulatory criteria promoted by the Minister in charge of housing,
aid to offset the negative effects of RE2020 and the ZAN (Zero Net Artificialization) objective.

Despite everything, the sector estimates that it can continue to create jobs in 2022 with 25.000 new jobs.