Families are leaving Paris… or Paris is leaving families?
What if behind the exodus of inhabitants, which is accelerating with the Covid-19, hides another reality?
That of the unsuitability of Parisian housing for families from the second or even the first child.
Head of the Studies department of the Ile-de-France regional office of INSEE, Mustapha Touahir confirms: "The housing stock in Paris is very particular and atypical."
According to data from the statistical institute, which Le Parisien has extracted, the capital stock of main residences is very largely dominated… by small surfaces!
More than one in two homes (55%) is a studio or two-room apartment.
Only 22% of dwellings have four or more rooms, necessary from the second child if you want one room per child and one for the parents.
In the ten largest French cities outside Paris, the share of small surfaces represents between 29% in Marseille (Bouches-du-Rhône) and 44% in Lille (North) of the housing stock.
In France, again according to INSEE, the share of studios and two-room apartments represent less than 19% of main residences.
In Ile-de-France, in the departments of small and large crowns, the park is relatively homogeneous: out of one hundred dwellings, 7 are a studio, 14 are two-rooms, 24 are three-rooms, 24 are four-rooms and 31 of the five-rooms or more.
Why such a contrast in Paris?
"The surfaces there have been constantly compressed," explains Loeiz Bourdic, the director in France of PriceHubble, specializing in real estate data.
In the past, there have been successive cuts to apartments to be rented out and reduce their prices. ”
Thus, according to INSEE, in the capital, five-pieces represent 6% of the fleet, six-pieces and more… 3%.
Large apartments are all the more rare in Paris as they are rarely on sale.
Even more in recent years with the dramatic increase in prices.
"People who have a large apartment do not want to move unless it is to go to another city, in the suburbs for example," says Brice Moyse, the boss of Immopolis.
More than half of their occupants are over 55 years old.
60% of them have lived there for more than ten years… 23% moved there more than thirty years ago!
A "bowl effect" specific to Paris
The typology of occupants of large apartments is not without posing a problem of under-occupation, even if, underlines Mustapha Touahir, “there are much less under-occupied housing in Paris than elsewhere in France or in Île-de-France. France".
Nevertheless: almost half of the four and five rooms are occupied by only two people, 42% of the six rooms and more are occupied by one or two people ...
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“The apartment for families is rare,” explains Mustapha Touahir.
Which contributes to the high prices.
"Same analysis on the side of PriceHubble where there is even talk of a" bowl effect ": from studios to three-room apartments, the median price per square meter drops (from 10,800 to 10,700 euros) before rising and even exceeding the price of the studio the higher the surface (from 11,100 to 11,800 euros) In other words: a five-room apartment costs more than a studio per square meter.
An effect specific to Paris - which cannot be found on rentals - explained by the tension on this type of property.
In the 18th arrondissement, Brice Moyse knows what it is.
In recent years, the real estate agent has seen the prices for supermarkets soar to absurdity: "Whether the apartment has flaws or not, whether it is well or badly exposed, whether it is on the last or on the first floor, he left at the same price, ”explains the real estate agent.
But thanks to a drop in demand with Covid-19, "the market is becoming healthier again and everything is not going at all costs", continues the boss of Immopolis.
Should we hope for a change in the coming months?
At PriceHubble, when you look at the ads currently online, nothing has changed dramatically.
Worse, according to Loeiz Bourdic, the "bowl effect" could be accentuated if not transforming in favor of a straight line increasing with the surface and the number of rooms.
"The prices of small surfaces could fall in the event of tightening of the rent control which would lower rents and therefore prices, the prices of very large surfaces could continue to rise because they concern wealthy customers who are not affected by the crisis and who have no difficulty in obtaining financing, ”explains the boss of PriceHubble France.
In the middle, it would therefore be the “modest” family that would drink.
At the risk of accelerating, even more, their exodus?
