Accommodation: changing our software! – The Opinion

Published Tuesday, December 16th at 7:34 p.m.

The lack of land and the lack of public funding not explain the housing crisis. When a question remains unanswered is that it is badly put! How to solve the housing crisis? Releasing building land in production? By capping the rents? ? In défiscalisant rental investment

Even hinged together, these ideas do not bring “miracle solution” to the crisis because they do not reach the heart of the problem is our very conception Housing needs to be reviewed thoroughly. According to the traditional view still prevails, the land and stone are the two main factors of production of housing, “essential good” in common use. The lack of one or the other of these two factors, if the high price of the two, would explain the current housing shortage. They forget that the habitat, a reflection of our time, is not immune to the changes: life expectancy lengthens, occupational and social mobility is accelerating amid emergence of large cities; individuals aspire to solutions “tailor-made” .Plutôt the land and stone, is the confidence and information that have become essential factors of housing construction.

Trust, at first. Housing remains, par excellence, the place of construction of personal identity and family life. Having an address is essential for social inclusion. But housing, which is more than 60% of household wealth, is also the main support their precautionary savings. The increase in life that at its traditional role of transmitting adds the source replacement income during retirement. Therefore, the possibility of reselling has become a fundamental element in the act of purchase of the property. Emergence of economic actors able to guarantee French reversible accession of a property, that is to say, its acquisition and the ability to find alternative accommodation, is a powerful spring for first-time buyers, as for rental investment. Vital for mobilizing private savings, trust only return if we are able to ensure market liquidity. Or, in other words, to give reality to the concept of residential courses. To do this, information and digital tools which are indisp ensable vehicle catalysts for success this evolution. An example: in so-called tense areas, over a third of social housing applicants are already welcomed in the housing stock. Meet does not necessarily imply the construction of new housing, even if they are essential to respond to other demand components. The key, however, is to give them access to the right information at the right time. Again, we have much to do. For years, we work on the land, on the design-build, on property divisions. All these approaches are worth pursuing, but they are not enough to cause the “break” sought. Only a change in our perception of the housing allow this break.

André Yche is CEO of SNI (Deposit). He is author The power of Nations , Economica, 2013.