Ownership for All? The Beginnings of Social Access to Ownership

Small urban estates developed in France during the 20th century thanks to loan programs for first-time buyers. These low interest rate loans created in 1894 for wage-earners were developed with the support of the state. Contrary to contemporary bank mortgages, these loans were initially devised as a mechanism to ensure the social protection of the working class. This paper therefore seeks to examine the parallel development of theses loans and of a wage-earning society by studying the files of 73 borrowers of the Société Centrale de Crédit Immobilier, one of the important credit companies created in 1911.