Real estate developers are doing well in Brittany, thank you for them. Everywhere at the entrances to the city, the panels praising the houses and apartments to be seized attract the eye, competing in imagination to find a name for them. “Landscape Ascension”, “Garden of Artists”, “Le Domaine des Chênes” or the modest “New World” all hope to attract residents or investors. According to the figures disclosed by INSEE, the market is booming in the region. In 2021, the number of building permits issued by municipalities has almost reached 35,000. A figure up 36.5% compared to 209, the last “normal” year. A catch-up of the health crisis where the offices had closed for a long time? A little but not only. Because the number of housing starts has also increased by 28% compared to 2019.
We can easily accuse “the invasion of Parisians” but the problem is more complex. With a strong demographic attractiveness and the phenomenon of “decohabitation”, Brittany is very popular. To accommodate young neo-rural families, executives in search of nature or seniors attracted by the coast, the region is building extensively, “including compared to the period before the health crisis “, assures the institute of statistics. Seeing the number of construction permits jump by 36%, the region has “widened the gap” with the national average, which stands at less than 13%. The fashionable sector of second homes is one of the explanations.
An increasingly expensive region
In a market where prices are calibrated according to supply and demand, the trend is upward. All departments combined, the price of new apartments has increased “by almost 9% in two years”, analyzes INSEE while the national average is around +4%. Long considered cheap, the region is less and less so. The price per square meter, which was 17% lower in Brittany than the French average, is now only -10%. An observation that is not valid in the metropolises and the coast where prices have soared in recent years. In this inflationary context, Breton notaries noted “the first signs of a slowdown” at the start of the year which could lead to a stabilization of prices.
With this population growth, it seems urgent to take measures to limit the consumption of land, particularly agricultural land. According to Land of links association, each year, 9,800 hectares of agricultural land are lost, 4,800 of which through artificialization. The SAFER (land development and rural establishment company) has even alerted the region to the spreading of housing estates, which are very land intensive.