The first city to have applied rent control in 2015 before it was canceled by the courts in 2017 and returned in mid-2019, Paris has been since January 1 the first city to be able to directly control this control.
Rent control which had a “real, but limited” effect in 2022, according to the Paris Agglomeration Rent Observatory (Olap), for which “more than one in four” newly rented homes are still rented above the ceiling.
“69% of move-ins were completed in 2022 with a rent within the range”
The fact that initial rents, before reletting, being above the ceiling have increased less quickly (1.7% on average) than the rent reference index (2.5%) is “proof of a “undeniable, although modest, effect of rent control”, estimates Olap in its summary communicated this Tuesday.
The scope of rent control, defined by “contracts signed in 2022”, i.e. some 136,000 move-ins and lease renewals, “represents 37% of the entire unfurnished private rental stock in the capital”, specifies the observatory.
But, out of a sample of nearly 500 cases, “69% of move-ins concluded in 2022 with a rent within the range, while 28% rented above the ceiling”.
Seven out of ten dwellings of less than 20 m2 exceed the ceiling
There are therefore “more than one in four homes above the ceiling” in the capital, summarizes Olap.
Very small spaces, where landlords can charge “high rents per square meter, while offering an affordable monthly rent”, are particularly affected, with “seven dwellings of less than 20 m2 out of ten” which exceed the ceiling.
During re-rentals, there were “more rents (14%) going above the ceiling than rents (4%) coming back within the range”, also underlines Olap.
Olap reminds “that exceeding the ceiling does not necessarily reflect non-compliance with the law” because they “may result from the application of additional rent”.
A measure that extends
Last October, the Abbé Pierre Foundation estimated that 28% of rental advertisements in Paris exceed the legal ceiling in 2023. A figure which represents a decrease compared to previous years. The rate was 31% in 2022 and 35% in 2021. But the foundation also notes that the measure is still applied “unevenly”.
The rent cap, which prohibits, with exceptions, renting a property beyond a reference rent, is applied in Paris, Lille, Lyon, Villeurbanne, Montpellier, Bordeaux, and in the intermunicipalities of Seine-Saint-Denis Common Plain and East Together.
It should soon be introduced in 24 municipalities in the French Basque Country, including Biarritz and Bayonne.