Second homes: no, Parisians are not in the majority in Brittany

Here is a study that twists the blow to what, in reality, is not true. THE second homes in Brittany, are held, for the most part, by Breton households, which are rather wealthy and elderly, according to INSEE. If the cliché of the “Parisian” fan of Breton stone is not totally unfounded, it is above all the Bretons themselves who benefit from it. Thus, 43% of owners also have their main residence in Brittany (mostly in the department where they live) compared to 30% domiciled in Île-de-France. Foreign owners, for their part, are an ultra-minority: 7% in Brittany against 10% for the whole of metropolitan France. More than half (53%) are British. Germans (12%) and Belgians (10%) complete the podium of the most represented foreign nationalities.

In terms of standard of living, households that own second homes in Brittany are often much better off than the average: 22% of them have an annual disposable income of more than 80,000 euros. By way of comparison, in 2018 the median annual disposable income of French households was 30,620 euros, according to INSEE. Finally, of all cardholders, 68% are at least 60 years old and 41% are at least 70 years old.

12% second homes in Brittany

Second homes represent 12% of all housing in Brittany (233,600 in total), a proportion which rises to 16% in Morbihan and 14% in Côtes-d’Armor, against 9% on average in mainland France. This places Brittany in 4th place among French regions in this area, behind Corsica, Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur and Occitanie, underlined Tristan Picard, head of the INSEE studies department in Brittany.

Among the champions of secondary residences in Brittany, we find the community of municipalities of Belle-Île-en-Mer (Morbihan) with a rate of 50%, that of the Emerald Coast (Dinard and neighboring municipalities) with 35% and that of Auray-Quiberon with 31%. Specific to the region, two thirds of second homes are located less than two kilometers from the shore, the highest proportion in France, notes Tristan Picard. This is also the case for the coastal strip located less than 500 meters from the coast, where 40% of Breton second homes are located. Other specificities of Breton second homes: they are rather large (31% are more than 100 m2 and 45% have more than six rooms) and mostly old (40% built before 1945, 33% between 1946 and 1984).