After Paris, Lille, Lyon and Montpellier, Bordeaux is in turn experimenting with rent control from this Friday, July 15. The City would like “counter the abusive practices of fixing high rents in the private sector in order to preserve the purchasing power of households” et “to allow growing families to stay in the city center if they wish”.
The measure will apply to the private rental stock, i.e. half of the housing units in the city, and will only concern new leases, that is to say re-lettings or first puts on the market. In concrete terms, the local rent observatory (OLL), piloted by A’urba, the city’s urban planning agency, will estimate median rents, which may vary according to the characteristics of the accommodation (size, age, geographical location …). The rent charged to the tenant may not exceed this median rent by more than 20%.
“Agencies and individuals will be required to include both amounts on their ads”, adds Stéphane Pfeiffer, deputy mayor of Bordeaux in charge of housing.
Remedies for tenants
The rental contracts must specify the reference rent and the increased reference rent, and the rents must not exceed this ceiling. “If the tenant notices that the rent exceeds this ceiling, he must first contact his landlord to find an amicable solution, continues the Bordeaux elected official. Otherwise, he can seize the departmental commission of conciliation of the prefecture, which can take administrative sanctions if the circumvention is obvious – the fine being able to go up to 15,000 €. »
Bordeaux, one of the most expensive cities in France
In Bordeaux, the measure comes to apply in a context of a very marked increase in rents, by 4.2% since July 2020, indicates a recent study by Best agents.
A vision contested by the UNPI33, the union of real estate owners, according to which the increase has not been higher than inflation for ten years and the establishment of rent controls for relocation in tense areas . “The local rent observatory considers that calculating the average evolution does not make sense, confirms Stéphane Pfeiffer. In recent years, we have produced more smaller dwellings, whose price per square meter is higher and this completely distorts the average. »
The deputy nevertheless notes that many people from Bordeaux, “even middle managers can no longer find accommodation”. “We need affordable housing in a city that has become one of the three or four most expensive in France”, he adds. The average price of an apartment now stands at €13.8 per square meter in Bordeaux, according to the rent map of the Ministry of Ecological Transition. This is much less than in Paris (€29.5) but more than in Toulouse (€11.2), Nantes (€11.6) or Lyon (€13.1).
Three years of experimentation
The town hall believes that the measure could quickly bring down the prices of small housing, the increase in which has been the most marked – studios for example can reach a median rent of 590 € in the city center, against 505 € three years ago. years, according to PriceHubble.
According to the study by Meilleurs Agents, 62% of the advertisements put online in Bordeaux before the entry into force of the experiment are above the new reference thresholds, with an average excess amount of €200 per month. According to Denis Jacques, president of the UNPI33, half of the small dwellings – less than 20 m2 – would no longer pass the ramp. “Our members tell us that they don’t want to lose €100 a month, and that they would prefer to sell these homes or keep them as a pied-à-terre rather than renting them out for the year. We therefore risk destroying 50% of the cheapest housing,” predicts the head of the association, who filed an appeal against the Bordeaux experiment.
Stéphane Pfeiffer does not believe in this scenario, “which has not been observed either in Lille or in Paris”. Nor does he believe in a transfer of these goods to Airbnb, “the municipal regulation of 2018 imposing, in the event of a change of use of a dwelling for seasonal rental, to create a new dwelling of the same size in the same district”. He also recalls that the experiment, which has limits – including the responsibility left to tenants to contest the rent – must last three years and can stop there if it has no effect.