2027 presidential election: what risks and what opportunities for the property investor?

The calendar is set: the first round of the presidential election will take place on Sunday 18 April 2027, the second on Sunday 2 May. Six months before the vote, property is not waiting for the ballot box to react. Financial markets, banks and some buyers have already built the uncertainty into their decisions. This article does not present the candidates' manifestos, which are not all known and will change again: it sets out what can shift for an investor, whatever the result, and what this period offers to those who know how to read it.

What is already at stake, before the vote

According to the Maslow.immo barometer carried out by Discurv and published at the end of August, one French person in three admits that the outcome of the ballot could lead them to bring forward or postpone their buy-to-let purchase. Yet half of those surveyed consider buy-to-let investment attractive: the doubt is less about bricks and mortar than about the stability of the rules.

This doubt has concrete causes. The 2027 budget is being debated in Parliament and its adoption before the end of December is considered highly uncertain. The public deficit expected for 2026 stands at 5.4% of GDP and debt is expected to approach 122% of GDP next year. The agency Moody's, which rates France Aa3 with a negative outlook, is due to give its opinion on Friday 23 October; S&P and Fitch already rate it A+. On 21 October, the government's ten-year yield reached 5%, a first since 2002, and the spread with Germany is at its widest since 2011.

History confirms this reflex without dramatising it. Over the seven presidential elections from 1974 to 2012, Crédit Foncier measured an average fall of 3.8% in sales of existing homes in the year of the ballot, framed by a rise of 4.6% the previous year and a rebound of 2.3% the following year. The election slows the market; it does not reverse it.

The risks to cover

1. The cost of credit

This is the most direct risk and it is already here. Banks set their rate scales by looking at the rate at which the State borrows: when investors demand a premium to lend to France, borrowers pay it too. The average 20-year rate has risen from 3.26% in the third quarter to 3.66% in October. On a €200,000 loan over 20 years, this rise represents around €41 more per month and nearly €9,800 in additional interest over the term, excluding insurance. A tense campaign, a rating downgrade or a political crisis after the vote could prolong this movement.

2. The taxation of wealth

With a deficit above 5% of GDP, the next five-year term will have to find revenue or savings, and property is a visible tax base. The past two years have shown it: reintegration into the capital gain on resale, since 2025, of the depreciation claimed under the LMNP regime (location meublée non professionnelle, non-professional furnished letting), and social levies raised to 18.6% on furnished-letting income in 2026. Whatever the result, the taxation of rents, of ownership and of resale may still change, including for properties already bought.

3. The letting rules

Rent control, the timetable for banning energy-inefficient homes from the rental market, the reform of the Jeanbrun scheme currently under examination: these rules are political choices and may be tightened as well as relaxed. An investment whose profitability rests on just one of these rules, a rent supplement, an exemption, a temporary tax advantage, is the most exposed to a change of course.

4. Institutional instability

The president elected will have the right to dissolve the National Assembly. A new electoral sequence in the spring or summer of 2027 would delay the bills in progress, including the housing reform, and extend the period of uncertainty beyond 2 May.

The opportunities to seize

1. Fewer buyers, more room to negotiate

When one buyer in three steps back, those who remain face less competition. Sellers in a hurry, estates, job relocations, portfolio reallocations, cannot wait until May. It is in these periods that prices are best negotiated, provided you have financing ready and the ability to decide quickly.

2. Rental demand does not vote

Students, young professionals and mobile employees will go on looking for a home in September 2027, whoever the president is. In the large cities where rental supply is becoming scarcer, demand does not depend on the electoral calendar. A well-located, ready-to-let property keeps its tenant, and therefore its income, while public debate grows tense.

3. A price that already factors in the uncertainty

Buying during a period of doubt means paying a price that takes that doubt into account. If the post-election period brings back visibility, purchase demand will return, as it has on average after past ballots, and those who bought beforehand will benefit. If the uncertainty lasts, a property chosen for its location and its yield goes on producing rent.

4. For sellers: sell before the ballot

Conversely, an owner who wants to sell has every interest in doing so before the wait-and-see attitude spreads to the majority of buyers, and in targeting the purchasers who remain active: investors whose project and financing are ready. This is the case of a 107 m² flat run as a furnished house share in Montpellier, which we presented to our investors in September and which went under a preliminary sale agreement this week.

What we advise between now and the spring

• Reason about the property before the scheme: location, price per square metre, market rent, technical condition. That is what does not change with a majority.
• Prepare your financing now: have the banks compete and borrow at a fixed rate, so as not to suffer a further rise at the moment of signing.
• Stress-test your project: profitability must remain acceptable with one more point on the rate, slightly heavier taxation and one month of vacancy per year.
• Keep a cash reserve: a few months of loan repayments set aside give you the time to wait out a turbulent period without selling in a hurry.
• Choose the right regime and the right structure with your accountant, comparing structures rather than betting on a single tax advantage.

We will update this article as the campaign unfolds, after Moody's decision, at the vote on the 2027 budget and the day after the second round. Information as at 21 October 2026, provided for general purposes: it constitutes neither investment advice nor tax advice.