According to Funim, France experienced a “historic” drop in sales in 2023

This 22% decline is expected to continue to a lesser extent in 2024, a year that may also be marked by an acceleration of price declines.

Two years after the post-Covid boom, the plunge. The French real estate market hit a record “Historic Fall” Sales in 2023, announced the National Real Estate Federation (Fnaim) on Tuesday 17 January. In one year, the market recorded 875,000 transactions in existing properties, or 240,000 fewer sales than in 2022, a decrease of 22%.

“This market has experienced the most brutal recession, the biggest drop in sales in 50 years”underlined Loïc Cantin, president of Fnaim, who predicts this decline to continue in 2024 (-10%). “This slowdown is explained by the combined effect of inflation, rising interest rates and increasing difficulties in obtaining real estate credit”Federation notes.

The decline in sales, however, is not considered alarming by the sector, which sees it as a return to normality. In fact, since 2009, prices have continued to rise. In 2023, apart from Paris and its suburbs, where prices fell by -5.7% and -3.6% respectively, as well as most large provincial towns (-2.6%), prices only experienced a decline in the rest of the region (-1%).

A sharp decline in prices is expected in 2024

For 2024, the sector is counting on stabilization or even a slight reduction in interest rates, which should be accompanied by an easing of credit conditions. Above all, it expects an acceleration of price declines, between -5% and -7%.

Meanwhile, Fnaim has a particularly gloomy assessment of the rental market. Unable to buy, buyers resort to renting. “Rental supply has been completely strangled in all French regions”Loïc Cantin declared, students who live with their parents and businesses “Prohibited to build housing as close as possible to their place of production”.