The Official Price of Property in France

Immobilier Statistics is “Le site officiel des prix de l’immobilier“—the official website reporting on property sales in France.

Click on “Prix d’Immobiler” and you’ll get an interactive map of France highlighting the specific regions and colorized based on price—from light yellow at the lowest prices to dark red at the highest. Note that the Paris region (Ile-de-France) and the PACA region (Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur) are the two most expensive places in France to own (or rent) property. Why are we not surprised?

But, don’t stop there. Want to know what price you can expect to pay for a two-bedroom in the Carré d’Or neighborhood in Nice? Easy. Just click on the PACA region. Then, keep enlarging and clicking until you see a close-up of central Nice. The Carré d’Or is divided into two neighborhoods—”Médecin” and “Rue de France.” The area around rue de France is the most expensive neighborhood in Nice. Property there averages 6,230€ per square meter.

Compare this with Paris’ most expensive district, the 6th arrondissement, the city’s most expensive quarter, which averages 15,420€ per square meter. So when I say that Nice is half the price of Paris, I mean it!

You can have an awful lot of fun navigating this site for the price of property all over France, but I warn you! The L’Institut National de la Statistique et des Etudes Economiques (INSEE) prepares the statistics as per the following:

“Measuring the changes in housing prices is a prerequisite to the proper functioning and transparency of these markets. In conjunction with the French civil-law notaires (notaries), INSEE has developed a method to produce regular and reliable price indices of used dwellings, the Notaires-INSEE housing price indices. It was first introduced in INSEE Méthodes no.98 (David et al., 2002), then in a revised version, “version 2”, in INSEE Méthodes no.111 (Beauvois et al., 2005). The latest INSEE Méthodes presents a new version, “version 3″, of the Notaires-INSEE housing price indices.” (Source and read more here)

Basically, the sales prices are recorded based on the net price on the deed, after agency commissions, the value of furnishings that have been deducted, etc. These sales took place months prior to the final report, and their negotiations took place even months before their deeds were recorded. Cash passed between buyer and seller, something that is illegal but does happen, is not recorded, further skewing the final results. The point is that the figures cannot be true to current market value, but do contribute to determining trends or making comparisons between real estate locations and amenities. In other words, value the statistics, but what paints a truer picture are properties currently on the market today!

Another site that reports the statistics provided by the INSEE is Meilleurs Agents. You may find it more useful, but the same caution applies.

Have fun discovering the price differences of Property all over France!

A bientôt,