After two years of lockdowns because of the Covid-19 crisis, the real estate sector is facing new challenges and desires. Let’s review the main differences we have seen online:
- the new reign of furnished apartments
- a new demand for houses within an hour of Paris
- pure player agencies trusting the market
The French real estate market is still boiling
The housing market is moving quickly, as fast as consumer expectations have evolved with the latest pandemics & new trends like remote work.
More than ever, real estate promoters & agencies need to detect emerging trends before their competitors do – to stay ahead of your end-customers expectations & adapt your marketing efforts.
Search engines are gold mines as they reveal what consumers are considering to buy or rent, at a very local scale.
With proper search listening technology, you can learn exactly how many people are searching for
- furnished flats
- houses with gardens
- housing near a specific place – like schools or public transportation
A rising trend for furnished apartments in Paris, Lyon & Bordeaux
As major French cities become more & more expensive, it becomes a true challenge to find a relevant apartment in a short delay. Since it is easier to move in and out, furnished flats are naturally gaining interest.
When comparing local search volume and population, Bordeaux is even the place where French people are searching the most for furnished flats.
French not speaking the same French everywhere in France
So adapt your marketing campaigns! Considering only non-branded searches (not containing any brand name), we monitor considerable differences between the Northern and Southern regions.
When looking to rent a flat:
- Northern people search for ‘appartement à louer”
- Southern people prefer using the expression ‘location appartement‘
Even at a local scale, you can observe some differences.
Surprisingly, people searching for studio meublé (smaller flats) are living very far away from Paris.
Parisians now looking for houses “1-hour away from Paris”
We saw above that the housing market in Paris is boiling and that many searches focus on finding something near to Paris. For a lot of families, being at less than one hour distance by car or in public transportation is required.
More than 146,000 searches from March-21 to March-22 for houses within an hour of paris.
+9,7% from January-22 to March-2022 for this type of product
Cities people are more interested in are: Paris, Argenteuil and Versaille
Brand awareness for real estate agencies strongly differs with searchers geolocation
Our platform reveals brand awareness of all key players among French searchers by computing the volume of branded search queries i.e. keywords containing brand names, such as Seloger, LeBonCoin, Orpi, or Century21. If we have a look at traditional agencies:
- Foncia trusts 34,9% of overall searches.
- Century 21 comes second with 17,8% of all searches
- Orpi closes the podium with 13,6% of all searches.
Although SeLoger.com dominates the industry, there are many small agencies competing nationwide.
The Stéphane Plaza agency, mainly boosted by its owner’s celebrity and the TV shows he hosts, reports a +29% increase from oct-21 to mar-22
L’Adresse is a new collaborative agency that gives its members the freedom to express themselves and share with the agency’s network. It is getting serious in major French cities, with a growth of +24% from oct-21 to mar-22.
Last but not least, Foncia is an already well-known real estate agency (ranked #4 in terms of search volume), we have tracked its +18% growth from oct-21 to mar-22.
