Posted on Jan 24, 2020 at 7:21 am
To place a winner in stone, it is necessary to assess the profitability of the investment and to understand the rental risk. The Meilleur Agents site has produced exclusively for “Les Echos” a list of cities where it is good to invest by combining these two parameters.
This classification thus makes it possible to quantify and optimize the risk-return ratio. Thus, Aubervilliers, Pantin and Bordeaux turn out to be the three municipalities which post the best scores with a minimum rental risk (1.5) and appreciable returns, namely 6.1% for Aubervilliers (93), 4.8% for Pantin (93) and 3.7% for Bordeaux on a scale culminating at 9.8% for Saint-Etienne.
Identify rental risk
While the profitability of a rental investment is fairly easy to assess (purchase price / annual rental income), rental risk is more complex to understand because it depends on several factors. The Meilleur Agents site designed composite data for this study. As a reminder, renting a property is more or less easy depending on the vacancy rate of the housing stock in the municipality where it is located and the distribution between inhabitants, tenants and owners.
The risk of real estate depreciation has also been included in the rating assigned by the platform. It integrates the evolution of the population, the health of the local economy and the evolution of the prices of the real estate market over a long period. On the basis of these different elements, a “scoring” of the rental risk emerges with scores ranging from 1.50 to 4.25. Finally, these results were crossed with the rental yield (see illustration) evolving on a scale of 2.5 to 9.8%.
Opposing groups
On reading this graph, there are two groups of cities showing opposite results. Thus, the group made up of Béziers, Bourges, Limoges, Mulhouse, Saint-Etienne and Sarcelles (95) brings together the municipalities serving the highest yields, i.e. above 8.5% with the highest rental risks (note in -over 3.5).
Depending on the specificity of each city, these results can be explained by a high unemployment rate, the low average income of the population, a sluggish real estate market and / or even a low rental demand due to a large proportion of HLM housing. .
In contrast, another set of cities combines both limited profitability and low risk. This is particularly the case for Lyon in the region and several cities in the western Paris region such as Boulogne-Billancourt (92), Levallois-Perret (92), Neuilly-sur-Seine (92) and Versailles (78). Common denominator of these cities? Each combines a high stone price with a tight rental market.
Although close in terms of results to this group, Paris is not one of them. “The rating for the vacancy rate of the housing stock is quite high and over the period 2011-2015, the city became depopulated. These elements probably weighed on the final score ”, explains Thomas Lefebvre, Scientific Director of Meilleur Agents.
Large deviations
By analyzing this study more closely, a handful of cities have the lowest score (1.5 out of 5) in terms of rental risk. This is particularly the case for Rennes, Toulouse, Nantes and Bordeaux. In Ile-de-France, particularly in Seine-Saint-Denis, Aubervilliers is the least risky city, followed by Saint-Denis and Pantin. Regarding the unemployment rate, the cities most affected are Perpignan, Calais, Roubaix; the least affected are Versailles, Colmar, Rennes, Nantes and Poitiers.
Through the prism of the vacant housing rate which denotes a dysfunction of the real estate market, the highest scores are found in Pau, Béziers, Mulhouse, Avignon, Bourges and Metz. In contrast, this vacancy is low in Cannes, Créteil and Mérignac. This study sheds light on the disparity between cities with an equivalent facial rental profitability. Thus, municipalities with similar returns (for example 4.6% and 4.7%) display disparate rental risk scores: 1.75 in Rennes; 2.25 in Villeurbanne; 3 in Antony and 4 in Nice.
Special cases “
This visual presentation makes it possible to identify cities that stand out because of local specificities. Thus, Nice promises a 4.6% return, but the rental risk is high (4), which puts it at the same level as Béziers and Mulhouse. “The city of the Baie des Anges is experiencing a significant rental vacancy, regularly losing inhabitants and with prices at half mast”, comments Thomas Lefebvre.
Le Havre and Roubaix are also distinguished by their highest level of risk, ie 4.25%, with respective rental performance of 7.1 and 8.1%.
Good compromise “
For an investor concerned with balancing return and risk, it will be advisable to make an investment in stable markets offering median results, namely a profitability of between 3.5 and 6% with a rental risk not exceeding 3. A small fifty towns correspond to these crossed criteria.
The best risk return ratio
SCPI still in the spotlight
Real estate investment companies (SCPI) have been making savers happy for several years. This is the way to access the very lucrative office real estate market with a reduced entry ticket (a few thousand euros is enough) and without the management worries associated with investment in stone. The returns of traditional SCPIs have been declining for several years, but this is low compared to that of other assets with which this investment can be put in competition. Result: a surge in fundraising, because investors see SCPIs as a martingale that combines yield and security. The total capitalization of SCPIs reached 62.4 billion euros as of September 30, 2019 (compared to 55.4 billion as of December 31, 2018, an increase of 13% over the last nine months).
And once again, the yield will be there. As of September 30, 2019, the Edhec IEIF Immobilier company France price index posted an overall performance of 6.3% over one year, of which 1.8% linked to the change in share prices and 4.5% to current yield. According to the preliminary study carried out by Linxea, specialist in online savings, the distribution rates (term equivalent to the return for SCPIs) for 2019 should be broadly equivalent to those of 2018. Many SCPIs see their rates drop slightly, but many of them increase it. Enough to delight fans of stone-paper, but faced with this craze, many specialists call for caution.
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The eldorado of real estate crowdfunding
In the crowdfunding family, real estate crowdfunding is among the most lucrative. The principle is to lend funds to promoters for the realization of programs. The sums contributed by individuals make it possible to increase the promoters’ own funds with the banks. This sector, now in the hands of a handful of platforms, has met with real success, even if it remains anecdotal compared to that of SCPI. It must be said that the investment is also more risky, although today there is only one case of default on all the projects financed (more than 1,300 since 2012). On the other hand, delays in reimbursements are more frequent.
According to the crowdfunding platform, the total amounts raised over the year were estimated at more than 300 million euros at the beginning of December, an increase of almost 80% compared to last year. As for the average yield, “In 2019 it remained at around 9.3% with an average duration which seems to have stabilized since 2018 at 20 months”, Homunity says.
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