The real solidarity lease to become a homeowner at a lower cost, a system that is still little known

The BRS separates the land from the building: the buyer acquires only the walls and pays a fee to a Solidarity Land Office (OFS), the owner of the land. As a result, the purchase price is significantly lower than the market price, a boon in cities hit by the housing crisis.

"It's the British way," says François Mouaze, who has owned a brand-new townhouse with a garden in Rennes for 99 years. He paid around €225.000, half as much as an equivalent house sold as a full-service property.

This fifty-year-old, a couple with two children, had always rented. Forced to leave a rented apartment in Rennes, he and his partner looked into buying a property in the city.

"It wasn't easy to make with our salaries," he says. Until his partner came across an ad for an off-plan purchase in a BRS (a residential building with a residential complex). "I'd never heard of it," admits François Mouaze.

Rennes metropolitan area, with approximately 474.000 inhabitants and expected strong population growth by 2040, is banking heavily on this initiative. "Our goal is to house everyone," Honoré Puil, vice-president in charge of housing, explained to AFP.

The inter-municipal authority has set a target of producing 5.000 housing units per year, including 1.700 BRS (residential housing units) to "house middle-class households and give them the opportunity to access property," the elected official continued. Rennes Métropole is dedicating €5,7 million to this by 2025.

"Golden opportunity"

Access to the BRS is subject to income ceilings, which have been significantly increased since 2024. As a result, "90% of tenants in the metropolitan area are eligible for the scheme," says Honoré Puil. The ceiling thus reaches €7.500 for a family of four.

After "an educational effort that is far from complete, including among elected officials," "we now undoubtedly need to make this system more widely known to the public," acknowledges Honoré Puil.

Rennes is one of the cities that adopted the BRS early, along with Lille. By 2028, the scheme is expected to expand to all regions, and numerous construction projects are planned in Nouvelle-Aquitaine, Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, and Île-de-France, according to data from the Foncier Solidaire France network, which brings together OFSs.

To raise awareness of this system, Rennes Métropole launched a poster campaign featuring people already living in BRS. Among them was Nathalie Stoschek, who lives with her daughter in an apartment in Cesson-Sévigné, a chic suburb of Rennes.

Previously a tenant in social housing with her daughter, she looked for a bigger place. "I thought about buying, thinking, 'It would be way too expensive for me in Cesson on my own,'" until I came across a developer's advertisement on social media.

"A golden opportunity," she recalls. "People don't know about this system," she also notes, speaking of those around her.

A teacher-researcher at the Lab'URBA laboratory, Claire Carriou studies the BRS.

She notes that "knowledge is still very disparate across the regions." In a questionnaire conducted among 120 households that had purchased BRS in the Île-de-France region, "half of them learned about the scheme through an online advertisement."

This form of home ownership isn't necessarily a given. "In many cases, it's first achieved by forgoing freehold ownership," notes the housing and accommodation specialist. Before purchasing, the main concern was "the prospect of limited capital gains upon resale," with prices and conditions being strictly regulated, she continues.

But "for a certain number of these households, the BRS was the only possible option" for becoming a homeowner, notes Claire Carriou.