2023 was looking like a crisis in the real estate market, and this impression felt throughout the year has just been confirmed by the figures. The number of building permits actually fell by 23.7% last year compared to 2022 with 373,100 authorizations issued, according to provisional data communicated on Tuesday by the Ministry of Ecological Transition. 115,900 fewer permits were issued over the entire year. The number of construction starts fell by 22% over one year, the ministry said, to 287,100 housing units.
Permit issuances reached record levels during 2022 due to regulatory deadlines. Authorizations for 2023 are below pre-Covid levels (-19%), between March 2019 and February 2020.
Deep crisis in new construction
Construction site openings over the whole of 2023 remain much lower than those of 2022, with 287,100 housing units, and also much lower than the pre-Covid period (-24.6%). “The market is falling back to near its historic lows of 1992-1993 (275,000 units),” the French Building Federation (FFB) warned in December, predicting a recession of 5% in 2024.
These poor figures can be compared to the record number of issuances reached in 2022 following an influx of permit requests at the end of 2021, before the entry into force of more ambitious environmental regulations (RE2020) for new construction.
But above all they reflect a deep crisis in new construction, as in the entire housing sector, due to a fall in demand linked to the tightening of borrowing conditions and the disinterest of institutional investors. for rental investment, but also the increase in construction costs and land prices.