Planning on selling or buying a house in France? How long the process will take may depend on where it is, as new figures reveal that it can vary considerably by town.
The average length of a property transaction is three months, but this has increased in many places in recent months due to the greater difficulty of getting credit amid rising interest rates.
Now, online property platform SeLoger has unveiled new figures on the quickest and slowest places in France to sell a house - from valuation to finding a buyer, to completing surveys, getting funds in place, and signing the paperwork to complete the transaction. It compiled the list using property sales data.
The cities with the quickest average transactions are:
Rouen (Seine-Maritime): 45 days
Roubaix (Hauts-de-France): 48 days
Quimper (Finistère): 48 days
Saint-Etienne (Loire): 48 days
Brest (Finistère): 52 days
Lille (Nord) is not far behind (59 days); while Nancy (Meurthe-et-Moselle), Perpignan (Pyrénées-Orientales), and Strasbourg (Bas-Rhin) are all on 60 days. Rounding out the top 10 is Angers (Maine-et-Loire), with 61 days.
Not only that, but transaction delays in Rouen and Roubaix have dramatically shortened in comparison to last year; transactions in Rouen took an average of 70 days in 2023 (25 days longer), and Roubaix was at 67 (19 days longer).
In contrast, while it is still the third-quickest city, Quimper was a lot faster last year, at 29 days on average in 2023, in comparison to 48 now (19 days longer).
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The slowest cities
The cities with the slowest transactions are currently racking up an average of 80 days or more.
These include:
Rennes (lle-et-Vilaine)
Saint-Nazaire (Loire-Atlantique)
Nantes (Loire-Atlantique)
Toulouse (Haute-Garonne)
Amiens (Somme)
Antibes (Alpes-Maritimes)
Bordeaux (Gironde)
Mulhouse (Haut-Rhin)
Reims (Marne)
Montpellier (Hérault)
Grenoble (Isère)
Grenoble in particular has increased transaction times by more than 20 days since 2023.
The rest of France
In the rest of France, sales times fluctuate on average between two and three months.
Cities with ‘middling’ transaction delays include:
Calais (Pas-de-Calais): 63
Dunkirk (Nord): 65
Pau (Pyrénées-Atlantiques), Caen (Calvados), La Rochelle (Charente-Maritime): 67
These cities are among those to see the longest delays in comparison to 2023. Calais has increased by 19 days since 2023, while Dunkirk has increased by more than a month, at 36 days.
Paris and Aix-en-Provence have also seen rising delays, with an increase of 10 and 11 days respectively in comparison to 2023.
