Faced with inflation, building a house is more and more expensive for Normans

In the aisles of the real estate fair, which put down its suitcases at the Caen exhibition center from October 14 to 16, Hélène, in her thirties, wanders around, looking for information. With his companion, they would like to invest in a new home in the next few years“because we have a real energy sieve and therefore we lose a lot of money in heating for example” But everything is expensive: “Real estate prices are soaring, and then you have to have a very specific profile to access bank loans, but we only have a permanent contract between the two of us“, she sighs.

Their dream would be to be able to build their own house, but since the covid crisis and the war in Ukraine, the prices are unaffordable : “With the price of materials going up, we don’t really know which solution to approach… patching up an old house or building one, but in both cases, I’m afraid our wages won’t keep up.“, believes Hélène, “so yeah, it’s a bit discouraging.“

Fewer and fewer construction contracts

Result : real estate developers see fewer and fewer clients coming to build a house. “There are always people who want to build but in fact the more it goes, the more it becomes reserved for an elite, remarked Gwenaëlle Boudard, commercial in the Résidences caennaises company, or to the lucky ones who manage to find the right vein, the right ground. So we try to find solutions, but honestly, we don’t really know where we’re going.”

Energy prices also have their effect on house construction : “For example, to cook tiles, you need gas, there the gas increases, so the price of tiles too, and that’s how it is for all raw materials“, remarked Clément Dauvin, technical sales representative in the housing construction company Maisons Tradibat. Real estate developers are betting more on the expansion of existing housing; a solution that is often simpler and often more affordable for customers.

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The real estate fair is open Saturday October 15 from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. and Sunday October 16 from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. at the Caen exhibition center. Free admission.