Without reading the coffee grounds of the new housing minister, Valérie Létard, it is impossible to say today with certainty what the 2025 budget law has in store for the housing sector. However, one thing is certain: the so-called Pinel rental investment system, which came into force on 1 January 2015, will end on 31 December 2024. It goes without saying, however, that investors who purchase in Pinel in the next two months will benefit from the tax benefits until their definitive extinction in 12 years.
A mixed assessment
This rental investment aid system allows you to benefit from a reduction in income tax for the purchase or construction of new homes located in a restricted sector, i.e. in a municipality classified in zone A or B1 (see infographic ), within the double limit of 300,000 euros and a maximum of 5,500 euros/m2. In exchange, the owner must undertake to rent it bare and used as a main residence to a tenant who is also subject to resource constraints.
The amount of rent is also regulated. In 2024, it must be less than 14.03 euros/m² in zone A and 11.31 euros/m² in zone B. Once these conditions are met, the income tax reduction varies depending on the rental period: 9% of the purchase price of the accommodation if it is rented for 6 years, 12% if it is rented for 9 years and 14% if it is rented for 12 years. The variant called “Pinel +” offers more attractive tax advantages (12% over 6 years, 18% over 9 years and 21% over 12 years), but the criteria are so demanding that the supply of eligible housing in Southern Aquitaine it is almost non-existent. existing.
Mixed ratio
Called to evaluate the system and evaluate its effects on the real estate sector, the Court of Auditors published a conflicting report on September 6. For the financial jurisdiction, the Pinel system would ultimately only imperfectly achieve the goals of building and renovating housing in tense areas.
On the one hand, the Court underlines the positive effects of a system that “has largely contributed to triggering real estate transactions that could not have been successful, or could have been less rapidly successful, without this orientation of individual savings”. While regretting, on the other hand, that this tax incentive has created a form of dependence among builders from which it is difficult to escape.
Throw Pinel out with the bathwater?
Equally ambiguous is the opinion of the Court of Auditors regarding the impact of the system on the rental market. Noting that Pinel has effectively responded to the housing needs of low-income families, enabling them to find quality housing in tight areas, the Court simultaneously deplores its long-term effects. Since most investors choose to resell their property at the end of the tax exemption period, the system ultimately only contributes to the temporary creation of a stock of intermediate housing, leading to a mechanical increase in rents in the private rental market.
“The Court of Auditors’ judgment on the impact of the system on the rental market is equally ambiguous”
Should we throw the Pinel out with the bathwater or replace it with another, more targeted device? Prudently, the Court of Auditors is careful not to decide, limiting itself to recalling that the challenge for local authorities “remains that of guaranteeing balanced and coherent urban development, favoring the diversification of the residential offer and the diversity of housing”.