Property Prices Still Rising, If Not as Strongly as Previously!

Last week in French Property Insider, I was expecting to report to you the second property market statistics issued by the INSEE (The National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies) which was to be available online on the Chambre de Notaires website. But this morning, it hadn’t yet posted. Fortunately, the INSEE, publishes its findings on it’s own site. The organization is a wealth of information.

Warning: The Notaires-INSEE indexes of resale housing prices are now published in a new version. Their development is based on a revised and improved calculation method. The field has been expanded to the French overseas departments and now covers France (excluding Mayotte). This new method is applied starting from the revised 1st quarter 2018 index. The reference point is now the average in 2015 (compared to 1st quarter 2010 until the publication of 1st quarter 2018).

Here’s the good and bad news:

In the second quarter of 2018, prices for resale homes in France (excluding Mayotte) increased less strongly than in the previous quarter: +0.5% compared to the first quarter of 2018 (provisional data adjusted for seasonal variations), after +1, 1%.

Year-over-year, price increases continued: +2.8%, after +2.9%. As observed since the end of 2016, the increase is mainly driven by the prices of apartments: +3.3% in one year, compared to +2.5% for houses.

In Île-de-France, the prices of the resale homes are still dynamic. In the second quarter of 2018, prices for resale homes in the Île-de-France increased again: +1.1% compared to the previous quarter, after +0.7%.

Over one year, prices continued to increase, but at a slightly slower pace: +4.1%, after +4.2% and +4.7%. The rise in apartment prices continues, with a slight slowdown: +4.8% over one year (+7.1% for Paris apartments), after +5.1%. The rise in the prices of houses in the Ile-de-France, less significant, is stable at +2.5% over one year.

In the second quarter of 2018, prices for resale housing in the province increased by 0.2% compared to the previous quarter, after +1.2%.Year-over-year, prices rose less markedly than in the Île-de-France: +2.3% between the second quarter of 2017 and the second quarter of 2018, after +2.4% and 2.6%. For the first time since early 2017, the annual increase is higher for houses (+2.5%) than for apartments (+2.0%).

In the second quarter of 2018, the annual volume of transactions remained at a high level: in June, the number of transactions made over the last twelve months was 953,000. It is similar to the cumulated volume over one year observed the previous quarter (956,000 in March), but still higher than that observed a year earlier (915,000). When transactions are compared to the stock of available housing, which increased by about 1% per year, the proportion of sales is equivalent to that of the early 2000s.

As indicated in the warning at the beginning of this publication, the Notaires-INSEE indexes of resale housing prices are published in a new version starting from the revised index of first quarter 2018. Moreover, as with each publication, the index is revised to take into account the observations of the periods covered which had not yet been recorded at the time of the previous publication. Compared to the data published on July 2, 2018, the price change in the first quarter of 2018 is lowered by 0.1 points in total (-0.3 points for apartments, no revision for houses). It stands at +1.1% compared to the fourth quarter of 2017 overall, instead of +1.2% (discounted on July 2, 2018), and +1.5% estimated on June 7, 2018.

For more complete information, visit the official INSEE site. You can download the pdf document (in French) as well.

Next week, we may have more from the Chambre de Notaires, but until then…there’s plenty here to chew on! The bottom line is that while one quarter may make a slight dip compared to the last, on a broader look, prices continue to rise.

A bientôt,

Adrian Leeds
Adrian Leeds Group

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P.S. Did you know that in addition to our rental apartments we also have listings for apartments and houses for sale? We do! Visit our Properties for Sale site for available listings. We are also well prepared to assist you if you’re looking to sell your property.