Rarely had the building's figures unscrewed so suddenly.
Over the last twelve months, declarations of construction site openings have fallen by 19% in Charente-Maritime according to a note published by the CERC, the Regional Economic Unit for Construction in Nouvelle-Aquitaine (*).
In detail, “pure” individual housing shows a drop of 25.8% in 2023 and even 29.4% during the last quarter.
Building permits authorizing new construction will collapse by 25.1% in 2023.
Consequences for employment
“The figures are extremely bad,” confirms Laurent Parrot, secretary general of the French Building Federation (FFB) in Charente-Maritime.
In question: “The high construction costs and the difficulty of access to credit”, mainly notes Sébastien Perruchot, the director of the CERC.
This explosion can also be seen in the dynamics of real estate transactions.
In 2023, their total amount lost 19.9%.
Sales collapsed by 19.2% to fall below 20,000 transactions compared to more than 25,000 a year earlier.
If the current situation owes a lot to high interest rates, explains Laurent Parrot, “the psychological factor also plays a major role.
Many people prefer to postpone their plans while waiting for better days.”
Also read: The slow agony of individual house builders: “A third will go out of business”
Construction employment is logically starting to suffer from these trends.
In 2023, the number of declarations prior to employment contracted by 13.3% in Charente-Maritime.
VSEs working mainly for builders of individual houses could be the first to be impacted, worries Laurent Parrot, referring to the situation of tilers, electricians and even plasterers engaged as subcontractors.
According to the CERC, the recovery could be undesirable in 2024. The FFB 17 calls on the government to mitigate the deleterious effects of interest rates.
“Each small drop will create a draft,” insists Laurent Parrot, hoping for a rapid rebound: “People will not be able to wait indefinitely to launch their projects either.
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(*) The Regional Economic Unit for Construction (CERC) in Nouvelle-Aquitaine brings together all public and private stakeholders involved in the construction and building sector.