House prices have dropped in most areas of France, accompanied by a sharp decrease in the number of sales, newly released information from the French notaires shows.
The data, which covers national sales up to the end of the third quarter of 2023, is the most comprehensive information available on the state of the property market in the country as all purchases must pass via notaires.
Because of the time it takes to compile, the data dates to autumn 2023.
The figures, released on February 7, show the number of property sales (houses and flats) dropped 20% year-on-year (comparing July - September 2022 to July - September 2023).
885,000 properties were sold in that year. In comparison, between January 2022 and January 2023 it was over 1,100,000.
During the same period, there was an overall fall in prices of -1.8% (houses and flats combined). However, this is still influenced by data from the end of 2022 before home prices started falling heavily so the nationwide fall is tempered.
Locally more drastic shifts can be seen with the value of houses falling, for example, by 20% in one area in the south in that period.
Out of the more than 30 areas where house price changes are shown in mainland France, seven saw an increase over the 12 months.
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The five highest year-on-year increases in house prices were:
Montpellier: +9%
Reims: +4.7%
Dijon: +3.7%
Saint-Etienne: +2.7%
Caen: +2.6%
Two other cities to see price increases were Rouen and Toulon.
In the last 18 months, the Mediterranean area has generally resisted price drops and has seen steady rises in house prices, however this mostly seems to have ended.
Montpellier and Toulon alone saw house prices increase (Toulon at a much lower 1.4%), although flat prices along the Mediterranean have not been affected as much as houses.
Everywhere else in the south outside these two cities saw house prices drop, including Corsica, which has previously been a bastion of increases, consistently seeing some of the highest in the country.
Corse du Sud saw the largest fall in house price out of any area measured, with a year-on-year drop of -20%.
The other largest drops were:
Metz: -13.1%
Châteauroux: -10.3%
Lyon: -9.7%
Amiens: -9.5%
Lille: -7.5%
Larger cities do not resist fall
Median house prices are still higher in large cities in France, even if they are falling, and remain above €400,000.
The three most expensive are:
Montpellier: €448,700
Lyon: €425,900
Marseille-Aix-en-Provence: €402,100
Houses located in Paris are included in the wider Île-de-France prices so are listed separately, or else it would be ranked as the most expensive city, as prices per m² are twice that of anywhere else in the capital. Marseille and Aix-en-Provence are combined into one ranking in the data.
The three cities/towns with the lowest house prices were all in centre or west of France:
Châteauroux: €130,000
Poitiers: €188,800
Limoges: €193,300
The map below shows the information in full from notaires:
Credit: Notaires de France / The Connexion
Both the notaires and several property experts forecast that the market will continue to decrease – both in terms of sales and prices – well into 2024.
Early predictions from notaires are that property prices fell by 4.2% between February 2023 and February 2024, although this is impacted by a sustained drop in the capital.
