Usually, a crisis is accompanied by a wave of wealth and job destruction. Today, the consensus is for an economic slowdown or even recession this year. It is also almost unanimous in announcing a change of cycle in real estate, lulled by the hum of a decade of cheap money.
And yet, this gloomy business climate is not fully reflected in the statistics. Unemployment continues to fall in France, reaching a decade-low of 7.3%. Recruitment difficulties persist in virtually all sectors of the economy. The real estate sector is in the same boat, torn between the need to readjust its workforce to get through the crisis, or retain its talent for fear of not finding any tomorrow. It's a Cornelian choice for brokers who have run out of transactions, or developers whose building permits are no longer being issued.
This quantitative equation is coupled with a qualitative unknown. The crisis affecting the real estate industry is not just financial or economic. It is also structural, as the industry is being called upon to decarbonize its activities. Decision-makers finally have the will. The money is there too, thanks to new regulations. It's just a matter of finding them. We'll have to find them. From our neighbors or a little further afield. Above all, we'll need to train these new skills. And very quickly, if we are to keep to the timetable dictated by the climate emergency.
This formidable project clearly lacks a project manager equal to the task. The welfare state is conspicuous by its absence in France. The ambition imparted by the Paris Agreement is hampered by a narrow vision and a lack of political courage. It is dissolved in a magma of increasingly complex measures, which could discourage many. Unless, that is, the companions get hold of the subject and carve out their own stone.
Over the next few years, the industry's challenge will be to reinvent its trades and transform these economic and structural crises into opportunities. If we have succeeded in financializing real estate in recent decades, who can believe that we won't also be able to decarbonize it? Especially if the former serves the latter.