It was to stop in 2023, but will finally be extended until 2027. If the zero rate loan (PTZ), intended to promote home ownership, will be extended, its scope is narrowed. The device will only concern “new collective housing” in “tense” areas. In so-called “relaxed” areas, all housing (collective and individual) will be able to benefit from it, subject to renovation.
This overhaul of the PTZ is part of the provisions which should be announced by Matignon, this Monday, June 5 afternoon, drawn from the conclusions of the National Council for Refoundation (CNR). Among the other measures, rental aid but also the end of the system provided for by the Pinel law at the end of 2024.
The zero-rate loan, to promote home ownership
The government is tackling the housing crisis in France, while 2.42 million households are still waiting for social housing, a figure never reached so far, and there are 330,000 homeless people.
Intended to support home ownership for households with the lowest incomes, the zero-interest loan was established in 1995 under Alain Juppe. Granted subject to means testing, this ready interest-free and free allows them to acquire their first principal residence, with a deferred repayment period of between five and fifteen years, without any monthly payment.
However, the device seems to be increasingly neglected by the French. Just under 63,962 loans of this type were granted in 2022, according to quarterly figures published by the Company for the management of financing and the guarantee of social accession to property (SGFGAS), where they were. nearly 117,000 in 2016, and about 123,000 the following year. The prize goes to the MaPrimeRénov’ zero-rate eco-loan, targeting work intended to improve energy performance… that only 130 households subscribed.
The government has chosen to extend it, while the prices of the old stagnate, but the prices of the new continue to grow in the first quarter of 2023, according to the clues INSEE and the Federation of Property Developers (FPI). At the same time, sales of new homes to individuals fell by almost 40% in the last quarter of 2022, according to the REIT, which estimates that the crisis is worsening.
Prioritize the purchase of collective housing in tense areas?
Removing the PTZ for new individual houses is a way for the government to promote the purchase of collective housing in the most popular neighborhoods. A strategy that is part of an existing policy, the zero rate loan being already differentiated : from 40% in the “tense” zones, it drops to 20% in the “relaxed” zones.
“In concrete terms, we build collectives in tight areas, and individual houses in relaxed areas. But it doesn’t work, the French don’t have it easier to buy, it’s even rather the opposite”, estimates according to Damien Hereng, President of the French Federation of Individual House Builders (FFC), joined by The Express.
With this new measure, he predicts that the government is “raising the cost of buying a house: the people who can buy a house will be the better off”. Because, analyzes Damien Hereng, “the markets for new and old properties, the city center and peri-urban areas are intimately linked: if a property rises [en prix]the one next to it also goes up”. He recommends “uniform accession aids everywhere”, to avoid these mechanical effects, and “measures to limit the size of the land on which we build” in order to optimize the space there. where it is missing.
This restriction of housing affected by the PTZ, with the termination of the Pinel system at the end of 2024, should also make it possible to finance the other planned measures, such as for example the extension of the “Visale” guarantee, which makes it possible to obtain a rental deposit. from Action Logement to tenants, sometimes without guarantors, to more than 2 million people by 2027 (compared to 1 million in total since 2018).