Yann de Poortere is thrilled.
"Leaving Paris, I no longer believed in it," he smiles.
At the start of the school year, this 47-year-old architect moved with his wife and son to the house he bought 20 years ago in Couloutre, one hour from Nevers, in the Nièvre area.
"Containment was the kick in the butt that we needed to finally take the plunge," he explains.
However, he did not let go of his four-room apartment in Paris for rent: his 18-year-old daughter, a student, continues to live there.
He and his wife, intermittent in the show, make frequent visits for their work.
In the Perche, Sébastien Delaubert, at the head of several Orpi real estate agencies, does not stop and requests are raining, while confinement has given rise to new aspirations.
“We have a new clientele who are no longer just looking for a second home as such, but rather a timeshare,” he explains.
Most real estate networks have thus noted from the deconfinement a boom in searches for “second homes”.
“There are two reasons for this, explains Philippe Buyens, head of Capifrance.
First, we don't know when the health crisis will be over and when we will be able to travel again.
But above all, the secondary residence, with teleworking, becomes a mixed residence.
"
A residence that becomes principal
"Before, a weekend was too short," explains Christine Fumagalli, head of the Orpi network.
Now, with teleworking, provided you have good network coverage, you can stay there longer… ”“ Dual-residentiality is now possible since confinement, ”supports Julien Haussy, head of the Atypical spaces network.
You can easily imagine going to your country house or second home, beyond the weekend, to telecommute.
"
Sébastien Delaubert is even starting to see families who, until now settled in Paris, register their children in the Perche: the second home becomes primary and the primary secondary residence.
A phenomenon that the notaries of Greater Paris had already noted in mid-September, stressing that "the former secondary residence becomes the second place of life".
The “second homes” phenomenon is not new.
Their number has also continued to increase between 2005 and 2019 with, according to INSEE, more than 500,000 news over the period (without their share of the total housing stock changing significantly).
"The Covid period, the need to disconnect, to get out of the oppressive living conditions of city life and to find a haven of peace, can however be an accelerating effect", explains Guy Tapie, a housing sociologist.
Not for everyone
According to a survey carried out by the Orpi real estate network in July, one in four French people were now considering buying a second home.
One in three is under forty, 11% of them are under thirty… “The codes have been broken by confinement, notes Christine Fumagalli.
There is a rejuvenation of buyers and we see that a quarter of those who want to buy a second home are tenants.
"
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Even in the mountains, the secondary explodes.
At Cimalpes, "we had an increase in our Internet traffic and requests", explains Benjamin Berger, at the head of this specialist in real estate in the Alps.
The number of prospects increased by 63% between May 15 and August 15 compared to 2019. A catch-up effect, of course, but not only: “Before buying, our customers test by renting, and we have had the most dynamic summer we've ever had since 2003. ”
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This pace of life is not within everyone's reach.
You have to have the financial means of course, but also practice an activity that lends itself to teleworking.
"It is above all a question of the ruling class and the CSP +", notes Christine Fumagalli.
According to the Orpi survey, one in three respondents who plan to buy a second home would allocate a budget of up to 200,000 euros.
Julien Haussy sees this new trend as a way of "rebalancing the territories".
An opportunity that some regions and departments had not failed to notice.
From the deconfinement, the latter had taken over the newspapers, televisions and metro corridors to promote their territory and attract city dwellers frustrated with the confinement.
