The cut in key interest rates after two years of sharp and sustained rises was expected to bring greater clarity to the French real estate market in 2024, but new political and economic tensions have prevented the fog from lifting.
Based on the opinions of 233 real estate decision-makers — investors, developers, asset, property and investment managers, consultants, and bankers — the 2025 edition of the Leaders' Perspective Survey details their convictions on the future of a real estate sector that is still redefining itself.
In an unequivocal rejection of the government's economic policy, 77.7% of real estate professionals surveyed consider it to be detrimental to the development of their business, compared with 45.2% last year and only 27% in 2023. Conversely, where 39% considered it favorable just two years ago, only 5.2% think so in 2025.
More than half of the professionals questioned as part of the survey believed last year that real estate would enter a new cycle in 2024. However, less than a quarter dare any longer to think that 2025 will be a rebound year for the French real estate markets. Furthermore, more than two-thirds expect real estate financing to become scarcer, compared with 53.5% in 2024, and as of last year, only half foresee an end to devaluations over the next year.
Additionally, if the office market continues to worry the professionals questioned, its disavowal is less unanimous in 2025 than in the first two editions of this survey, at 40.2% versus 58% in 2024, and 48% in 2023. This year, residential real estate at 62.9% and hotels at 59.5% surpass logistics, 49.3%, as the most attractive asset classes, while the rebound recorded last year by the retail market is stabilizing at 27.5%, versus 27.8% in 2024.
With so few respondents planning to resign themselves to adopting a plan to save jobs (4.8%) or lay off staff (4.4%), the crisis continues to influence the human resources policies of real estate companies. Only 10.1% of professionals surveyed say they are open to hiring this year compared with 12.3% of respondents in 2024. This compares with 57.9% who intend to recruit in a more targeted manner in 2025 versus 58.3% in 2024, and 40.4% who plan to freeze hiring this year versus 29.8% in 2024.
Just like last year, the professionals surveyed are harder on their industry than they are on themselves, albeit to a lesser extent. Even though only 13.5% consider themselves to be behind the Paris Agreement targets, compared to 14.7% in 2024, 38.3% deplore the fact that their sector is behind the recommended carbon emissions reduction schedule versus 48.3% in 2024.