Housing conditions at end 2013 - First results of the Housing Survey

At end 2013 the housing stock in Metropolitan France had 28 million main residences. More than half of these housing units (58%) were occupied by households who were homeowners, of which nearly 20% were first-time buyers. After increasing during the 1990s and 2000s, the annual flow of recent buyers returned to lower levels. 15% of households considered their housing conditions insufficient or very insufficient in 1973, and only 6% in 2013. More than half of households who said they would like to change housing plan to look for larger housing and 1.4 million households had filed or renewed an application for low-cost housing over the last twelve months, up in comparison to previous decades. 2.7 million households lived in situations of overcrowding. While this situation continued to decline in individual housing, there was a resurgence in collective accommodation. Some accommodation also had problems likely to jeopardise the safety or health of their occupants. The most common problems were the presence of damp, water infiltration, windows that let in air, poor heat insulation in roofs or walls.