As the popularity of self-catering city holidays took off, property investors snapped up places across the French capital, turning former family homes into luxury rentals – at twice or even three times the previous rent.
The main thrust of the city’s crackdown on the sudden housing shortage has been to reduce the number of holiday lets and make the business less attractive to property owners.
Local taxes and social charges have also increased, in a bid to encourage more owners to return the properties to long-term rentals.
Property manager Gail Boisclair, who runs Perfectly Paris has seen the rental market change but is not convinced that current measures can really solve the housing crisis nor reduce overtourism.
For Paris residents, the average monthly rental for an unfurnished apartment is €40 per m² but that can vary between €35 and €52 per m² depending on the arrondissement. Depending on what kind of lease a vacation rental owner uses, they can ask considerably more for short-stay lets.
When he was running for office, the new mayor of Paris, Emmanuel Grégoire promised to go after owners of buildings deliberately left empty for part or all of the year. These include secondary residences, apartments used for vacation lets, but also entire buildings owned by large companies who deliberately leave them empty, secure in the knowledge that the value of the building will increase, even without any rental income.
Boisclair believes going after those companies would do more to increase the long-term housing offer than driving out people who have a secondary home in Paris that they let occasionally to tourists.
One of Grégoire’s promises that both Boisclair and Béatrice Dunner of the Association for the Defense of Montmartre believe is imperative, is a move to protect smaller shops and businesses from the open rental market, where big chains or luxury brands can afford to pay more and thus push up prices, driving out local grocery shops, hardware stores or bookshops.
Reporting from Paris reached out to City Hall for comment but had received no reply at time of publication.
