The end of the Pinel law precipitated the withdrawal of investors from the real estate market and the collapse of new housing sales in the Toulouse urban area.
In mid-2025, the figures are final. The fall in sales of new housing continues inexorably in the Toulouse agglomeration, with – 25 % sales to individuals recorded in the first half compared to last year. These figures were communicated this Thursday by the promoter Stéphane Aubay, president of Greencity Immobilier and vice-president of the FPI (Federation of real estate developers) Toulouse Occitanie. Since the beginning of the year, barely 1,005 new homes have been sold to individuals throughout the urban area, including 506 for the city of Toulouse alone. A derisory volume for a metropolis now classified 3rd in the population. The promoters point to the disappearance of investors, who represent only 20 % of sales, against 62 % in 2021.
Prices that continue to mount
Table of Contents
Against all expectations, prices do not drop. In the first half of 2025, it is now necessary to pay € 4,490/m² to buy new accommodation in the urban area. Surprise: in comparison with the average of the last three years, prices have even increased by 2.3 %. “This is explained by prices of land and work costs which drop very little, and ultimately oblige us to sell according to a cost cost,” explains the promoter, even if, he recognizes, “it is not likely to revive the machine”. The new intermediate rental housing system (LLI), supposed to replace Pinel by allowing investors to benefit from 10 %VAT, does not yet seem to have found its audience.
A major housing crisis is to be feared
Another reason for worry: no sign of recovery is looming. Faced with marketing difficulties, promoters have given up many programs in recent months, thus reducing their production. Since 2018, sales have dropped 68 % in the urban area, and the trend continues with a new drop of 16 % in the first half of 2025 compared to the same period last year. “By force of things, we reduce the offer, and this suggests great difficulties on the housing market in the next three or four years in Toulouse, a city which nevertheless welcomes many new inhabitants,” worries Stéphane Aubay.
Building permits that are missing at the call
Marketing difficulties would not explain everything. Promoters also point to increasingly rare building permits in the agglomeration. Even Toulouse, however described as “good student” by the FPI, is concerned. “City services have issued 4,800 license dwellings in 2023, but only 2,800 in 2024, and this year we should not exceed 2,500. Worrying when we know that in average 30 % of these permits never emerge from the ground,” said the representative of the profession, who attributes the donkey cap at the Sicoval. “In this territory, however soon linked to the metro, the number of permits granted is currently close to zero.” Difficult to imagine that this curve can be reversed less than a year from the municipal elections.
The success of sales helped in Empalot
In this slump, the priority district of the city, Empalot, seems conversely to take advantage of the opportunities for the helped social accession. These devices allow occupants to become owners while benefiting from 5.5 % VAT and they are experiencing real success according to the FPI which recorded 154 sales concluded in this way in the agglomeration since the start of the year, a jump of 450 % in a year.
