See the French cities where properties sell quickest (and slowest)

It took an average of 58.2 days for properties (flats and houses) to sell in France’s 50 biggest cities in September this year, a new study by property valuation specialists Meilleurs Agents shows.

This is consistent with the average sale period for 2021, which was 59.3 days but quite a bit lower than in 2020, which had an average sale period of 67 days.

This is in part linked with Covid, as 2020 was a stunted year for property sales in France due to rules such as lockdowns and curfews.

The pandemic also had an effect in 2021 and this year, with medium-sized cities such as Antibes, Pau and Perpignan proving more popular, meaning that properties were snapped up quicker.

Marseille is another city that has become more popular in the past two years, with properties selling in 62 days on average this month, compared to 73 in 2020.

“Marseille has become a very attractive city in recent years, mainly due to it having lower prices than in other cities," Barbara Castillo Rico, director of research at Meilleurs Agents, told Capital.

On the other end of the scale are cities such as Nantes, Toulouse and Lyon where sales have dragged on longer this year compared to 2020. This is notably due to property prices increasing in these cities.

Meilleurs Agents’ study is based on an analysis of thousands of sales listed on the website of estate agency SeLoger. It does not take into account the large cities in Paris’ suburbs.

Our table below shows the average property sale time (flats and houses) in September of this year compared to the yearly averages for 2021 and 2020 in 50 of France’s biggest cities.

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