Locked up at home for 2 months, many French people escaped by looking at real estate advertisements for houses. At the time of deconfinement, this reverie of a larger elsewhere with access to the outside seems to be taking shape.
- Searches for individual houses have progressed since confinement
- City centers are less popular
- The second home market could benefit from this trend
What confined city dweller hasn’t dreamed of a bigger balcony, a ‘real’ terrace or even a garden? It seems that this desire persists after deconfinement. “We have noticed a significant shift of people who wanted family apartments before the confinement and who now want a houseassures Philippe Lachenal, manager of three Laforêt real estate agencies in Issy-les-Moulineaux and Vanves in the Paris region. People ask for balconies, terraces, gardens but they are also interested in ground floors with access to an exterior.“
A phenomenon that seems national. “Normally there are as many house searches as there are apartment searches.explains Séverine Amate, spokesperson for the Seloger group, there we are witnessing a boom in the audience! Houses represent 2 out of 3 searches!“A desire for space which seems to materialize in new territories. “We notice an attraction for medium-sized towns – between 10,000 and 60,000 inhabitants, she says. This is particularly the case for cities around Paris, Marseille and Bordeaux such as Marignane (13), Gennevilliers (92) and Choisy-le-roi (94). These cities are about twenty minutes from Marseille or Paris, perhaps the development of telework attenuates this criterion of distance.” An observation also shared by a competing platform. “In Ile-de-France, for example, Paris recorded a drop in searches of around 44%, while Seine-et-Marne increased by 24%! observe the analysts of the PAP site. In most cities, the same phenomenon is observed: searches in the city center are decreasing, to the benefit of searches in the whole department. Finally, we also see a clear increase in searches for second homes: Calvados, Dordogne, Hérault and Pyrénées-Atlantique have recorded increases of 30 to 50%.
Improvement of living comfort
Moving away from city centers also seems to follow a financial logic. The further the accommodation is from the city center, the more the price per m2 tends to fall, the more it gives the possibility for a buyer to afford a larger living space. This aspiration seems clearly motivated by a return to nature. “We note that areas of 100m2 and 200m2 are more sought after, whereas small areas were predominant beforeexplains the spokesperson for Seloger. If the search criteria around the keywords ‘house’ and ‘garden’ have increased sharply at the national level, that of ‘swimming pool’ has jumped by 121%!“
A desire for the outdoors motivated by long weeks of confinement. “I don’t think it’s a passing fancyreplies Philippe Lachenal. Although a request for a garden or balcony is something quite common during sunny days, I think that the confinement has left a lasting mark on people. If they suffered from this lack, they will remember it all the more since the risk of a second confinement in the coming months or years is something plausible today.“So tomorrow everyone is green?
.
