Why did Paris Olympic holiday rental boom fail to materialise?
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00:00Now, many Parisians were hoping that they could earn a mint by subletting their apartments
00:05and homes during the Olympics at high prices. But not all have found takers. Hoteliers and
00:12Airbnb owners were forced to lower their prices ahead of the Games as supply outstripped demand.
00:20Joining me now is Sophie Desmaziere, the founder of BureauLoco.com. Sophie,
00:26what exactly happened? Why are we witnessing an oversupply of holiday apartments in Paris?
00:34Yes, what happened is everybody thought every flat could be for rent, which is not the case.
00:43And also the supply has increased and I think it has tripled. It has tripled. And the reality that
00:50I see pictures from our flats is only high-end flats went for our customers. So all Parisians
00:59thought they would find people, especially American customers. But if you want to attract
01:06American customers, you have to offer high-end flats. And that's, it's not only, it's not,
01:15there are not so many in Paris. So maybe what we do at Homanly, we have a carefully created
01:23portfolio and we have an 80% occupancy because we offer air con, we offer services,
01:29we're the finest hotel. But if you just have a studio and nothing special, it's very difficult.
01:36And so probably Airbnb and all Parisians thought they could do hotel services, which is not the
01:48case. Is it a case of greed overcoming common sense? Are people thinking there was a lot of
01:55money to be made here come whatever? You're right. And also what happened is that a year ago,
02:02everybody said, oh, you can triple, you can maybe make four times the normal price,
02:10the normal price. But it doesn't work. At the end of the day, only the flats that were on the
02:18real good price, which is not more than two times the normal prices, found customers. And there was
02:25something, well, it was like a rumor. Yes, you will send customers, which is not the case if you
02:32offer something that is not worth the money. So now things are much better. Prices are cheap,
02:40not as they were last year. So if you could find, if you had a good offer at a good price a year ago,
02:48then there were customers. But today, most Parisians, they are disappointed.
02:56They're disappointed. Again, if you offer something special, like high-end services,
03:03views, price-taking views, then you have customers. And if you stay for a week or more,
03:10it's a reality that it is very pleasant to stay within a flat because you have much more space
03:15than in a hotel bedroom. You can cook for yourself or you can have a chef coming, which is
03:21something that has to be organized by specialists because it's not easy to find a chef during the
03:28Olympics. Sophie Desmier, we're going to have to leave it there. Thank you so much for your time.
03:35My pleasure.