La vente de logements sociaux à des particuliers. Modalités et conséquences d'une pratique encore marginale des organismes H lm franciliens

In 2007, upon a request from the State, French social housing organisations offered for sale parts of the housing stock they rent to low-income households. By doing so, they have followed the lead of other European housing organisations. Several consequences can be drawn from those foreign experiences: the complexity of the sale mechanisms, their contrasting impacts on the housing market, and the organisational changes they trigger. In this paper, we assess whether the French experience is similar to that of other European countries. We show that, despite a constraining legal framework that restricts the scale of sales, consequences on the French social housing market are significant. The sales mechanisms diversify the activities of social housing organisations. It also tends to reorganise their strategies towards a stronger link between social housing's sales and production. By exploring these evolutions, the paper will question the residualisation process in social housing policy.