La désaccumulation sélective : la place des personnes âgées sur le marché immobilier résidentiel du Grand Lyon (2006-2015)

The impending retirement of the Baby Boomers, in majority homeowners, raises the question of the elderly people’s position in the residential real estate market. The asset-based welfare discourses are based on Life Cycle Hypothesis (LCH) models which predict a decumulation of housing equity by older people. Although particularly modest in the case of France, the decumulation is empirically valid [Laferrère, 2008]. However, these works are confined by an insufficient distinction between rental and owner-occupied houses. A study of the real estate transactions conducted in the Grand Lyon between 2006 and 2015 highlights the selective aspects of real estate decumulation. This paper first explores the differential treatment of houses depending on the housing occupation status. Rental properties and assets are managed in a comparable way through a precautionary decumulation. In contrast, the householders are way more attached to the owner-occupant status, therefore are more likely to retain their main residences. The decumulation selectivity also takes on a spatial dimension. The Grand Lyon real estate market can be segmented into three submarkets. Whereas the central area is driven by a financialisation of housing behaviours, the Western and Northern territories are predominantly marked by residential logics. The Eastern and Southern areas occupy an intermediate position while involving lower-value assets. This observed diversity in the forms of decumulation puts forward a spatially varying validity of behavioural models.