Daniel Tchenio, SBRE Marseille: "Responsiveness in real estate is key."

to achieve the objectives of the metropolis. Moreover, due to the market and rising interest rates today, most real estate developers, except for a few such as Lazard and 6ème Sens, have stopped launching their projects, investments have come to a complete halt.

Is changing the way we work having an impact? With the rise of remote working since the pandemic, we are also seeing that companies can do without 20-30% of their real estate as workspaces are on average 60% occupied. We are seeing an increase in collaboration in workspaces. Quality of work life has become a strong indicator within companies: we are trying to bridge the gap between personal and professional so that everyone feels comfortable in the office. In the projects we run together with CBRE, we maintain the same volumes,''re-organizing spaces to optimize them.

What concern is there about the economic situation in the territory? We're not going back to the interest rates we've seen before. It's going to take several years. There is genuine skepticism about the investment market. The only way to correct the imbalance between sales and affordability is to raise rents or sales prices to restore pre-crisis levels. A crisis has several factors including wars, energy, environment, finance..... The combination of all these factors creates many unknowns. The situation is somewhat bleak right now, although the market is resisting for now. In our industry, we won't hide the fact that times are tough. However, in commercial real estate''we always have projects underway, even in difficult market conditions. We are now focusing on renovation projects, like the Beautiful Central, in Colbert, or the beautifully restored Cap Joliette in the central business district at Place Joliette.

What do you think urgent measures should be taken by municipalities? They must free up land to create projects in order to reduce land and property costs. This will allow the whole real estate chain to save time, to get closer to the economic reality of companies and households. Permits should be issued faster. The real danger is the real estate poverty of new office and residential buildings: if we don't have''s opportunity for a quick fix, we face difficult years ahead. For new buildings, everything is already sold before they even come up. If a developer doesn't have the ability to complete projects, in any neighborhood, we will fail and interested parties will turn elsewhere. What matters now is the response.

In this profession, you have to be resilient.