Prices are falling. But in a very heterogeneous way across the whole of mainland France. Over one year, apartment prices are still rising sharply in Nice or Marseille, and falling in Lyon or Nantes. And the houses? And in rural areas? The drop in prices is still far from being a generalized rule…
The fall in prices everywhere in France? No. Many French villages and towns are still resisting the “downward trend”. However, the number of transactions and real estate activity in general are clearly collapsing: “Usually, after a month of August which is the worst of the year, sales recover at the start of the school year,” explains economist Michel Mouillart comments on the latest PLI-iad real estate price barometer, an observatory based on data from around ten players in the real estate market (1).
“But this year, after showing exceptional resistance in August, purchases plummeted in September (-21.4%), taking them to their lowest point in the last 20 years! Thus, the activity recorded over the first 9 months of 2023 is 12.4% lower than that of 2022 and 29.6% lower than that of the corresponding period of 2019, before the implementation of credit rationing by the Bank of France,” continues the economist.
“Rapid increases persist in the provinces and can be seen in 52% of cities”
The current collapse of the real estate market is pushing sellers to lower their prices. But the fall in prices is still far from being generalized : “The decline in prices remains most marked in Ile-de-France (-4.1% over one year at the end of September) and now concerns 95% of Ile-de-France towns (compared to 90% in August and 60% in January); while rapid increases persist in the provinces and can be seen in 52% of cities,” points out Michel Mouillart.
The cities where prices are falling the fastest
It is in some of the largest cities in France, in Paris, Lyon, Nantes or Bordeaux, where prices had risen so quickly in recent years, or reached unsuspected records in the case of the capital, that prices are falling faster. In Lyon, prices upon signing the sales agreement have fallen by more than 6% in the space of a year!
| City | Average price per m2 to the signature end of September 2023 | Evolution of the signed price over 1 year | Evolution of the displayed price over 1 year |
|---|---|---|---|
| Paris | €10,955 | -3.7% | -3.5% |
| Nice | €5,297 | +7.1% | +6.9% |
| Lyon | €5,040 | -6.1% | -5.7% |
| Bordeaux | €4,951 | -3.1% | -2.6% |
| Nantes | €4,233 | -4.6% | -5.3% |
| Rennes | €4,119 | -3.6% | -1.8% |
| Strasbourg | €4,028 | -0.3% | +1.6% |
| Lille | €3,890 | -2.1% | -0.5% |
| Marseille | €3,780 | +5% | +4.4% |
| Toulouse | €3,775 | +1.6% | +1.1% |
| Montpellier | €3,464 | -0.3% | +0.4% |
| Toulon | €2,939 | +4.3% | +4% |
| Reims | €2,922 | +4.2% | +2% |
| Grenoble | €2,921 | +1% | -1.5% |
| Le Havre | €2,468 | -1.4% | +2.4% |
| Saint Etienne | €1,630 | +1.1% | +1.1% |
Source: LPI Observatory (Real Estate Prices), which brings together BNP Paribas Residentiel CHH, CapiFrance, Crédit Logement, Crédit Mutuel, Gecina, Groupe BPCE, iad, La Banque Postale, OptimHome, SAFTI and Sogeprom.
Price displayed : seller’s price when taking the mandate from the broker, agent or other real estate intermediary.
Price signed : price measured at the signing of the sales agreement.
The LPI barometer offers an evolution of the signed price and the “displayed” price, in other words the real evolution of prices and the evolution of prices expected by sellers. This shows that in a city like Rennes, sellers are trying to limit the drop (-1.8% over one year for the displayed price)… but buyers manage to reduce the bill by 3.6% on average. when signing the compromise.
A record trading margin
7.4% : here is the average negotiation margin, in France, between the price originally displayed when publishing a real estate advertisement and the moment when the sale is concluded. This margin has jumped in one year with an increase of 67%!
The negotiation margin has even almost doubled for houses with 4 rooms or less. Explanation advanced in the “Real estate prices” barometer? “The tightening of access to credit particularly penalizes the projects of candidates for (first) accession who until now were oriented towards financially accessible goods and who must now obtain a strong reduction on the price (9 to 10% ) in order to carry out their project. »
Clearly, households seeking to become owners by purchasing a house on the outskirts of a town or in a rural area can no longer afford to buy at the price displayed…. hence the negotiation margins observed. Thus, for a house in Languedoc-Roussillon, the price is reduced by more than 10% between the publication of the ad and the sale!
Invest in real estate from €1,000. OUR list of the best SCPIs
House prices: drops… but not everywhere in France
Published jointly with the LPI observatory, but covering a slightly different period, the Meilleurs Agents barometer also points to a drop in prices, of -0.6% on average, in France, over the first ten months of 2023 But prices are not yet falling in rural areas…
| For the year 2023 | In 5 years | |
|---|---|---|
| Paris | -4.5% | +2.1% |
| 10 biggest cities | -1.5% | +27.8% |
| 50 largest cities | -0.2% | +29.9% |
| Rural areas | +2.8% | +26.5% |
| Metropolitan France | -0.6% | +24.9% |
Source: Meilleurs Agents national real estate price barometer – prices as of November 1, 2023
The Meilleurs Agents network still points to areas where prices – including those of houses – have ended up falling: “The biggest declines in prices on houses [sont enregistrés] basically [dans les] departments of the Grand Est and Centre-Val-de-Loire regions (-11.3% in Moselle, -9.1% in Haut-Rhin, -6.3% in Bas-Rhin, -7.2% in Indre-et-Loire, -7% in Eure-et – Dormouse). » A real estate landscape still far from homogeneous.
(1) BNP Paribas Residentiel CHH, CapiFrance, Crédit Logement, Crédit Mutuel, Gecina, Groupe BPCE, iad, La Banque Postale, OptimHome, SAFTI and Sogeprom.