House Building in France in 2015
Thursday 03 March 2016
New house building in mainland France increased marginally by 0.4% last year to 335,000, after having fallen in the two previous years.
The level of housebuilding in France each year is impressive, particularly when compared with the UK.
With upwards of at least 300,000 new homes each year it compares with around 125,000 built in the UK.
This fact no doubt goes a long way to explaining why prices in the UK continue to rise, whilst those in France are falling, or, at best, stable.
However, the figures do need to be interpreted with some care, as they are not always what they seem.
Most importantly, they include the conversion and renovation of existing buildings, amounting to around 30,000 homes a year
The total also includes specialist housing for the elderly and disabled, amounting to 37,000 last year.
Most of the new homes are also apartments, with the level of individual houses at around 100,000 each year.
As can be seen from the table below, by far the highest levels of activity occurred in the Ile-de-France, Provence-Alpes-Côte D’Azur and Rhône-Alpes, the main economic regions of the country.
The figures from the Ministère de l'Écologie, du Développement Durable are, at this stage, provisional only.
| Housebuilding 2015 | ||
| Region | No | Variation 2014/15 (%) |
| Alsace | 10,600 | +4.2 |
| Aquitaine | 25,200 | -3.1 |
| Auvergne | 5,400 | -1.5 |
| Basse-Normandie | 5,600 | -8.2 |
| Bourgogne | 4,800 | - 4.8 |
| Bretagne | 19,500 | +5.1 |
| Centre | 9,600 | - 4.9 |
| Champagne-Ardenne | 4,000 | -7.7 |
| Franche-Comté | 4,100 | -1.3 |
| Haute-Normandie | 7,900 | - 5.7 |
| Ile-de-France | 64,200 | +15.1 |
| Languedoc-Roussillon | 19,500 | - 0.2 |
| Limousin | 1,800 | -11.5 |
| Lorraine | 7,000 | -10.5 |
| Midi-Pyrénées | 20,000 | +4.5 |
| Nord-Pas-De-Calais | 14,200 | -10.8 |
| Pays de la Loire | 23,100 | +7.6 |
| Picardie | 6,500 | +5.3 |
| Poitou-Charentes | 7,700 | -12.5 |
| Provence-Alpes-Côte D’Azur | 31,500 | -1.6 |
| Rhône-Alpes | 42,800 | - 6.7 |
Source: SOes, Sit@del2
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