France’s property market has entered a period of ‘fragile recovery’, say notaires, with several areas registering house price rises overall last year after sharp drops in 2022 and 2023.
The most recent notaire data released shows several areas recorded an overall increase in average prices between the end of 2023 and the end of 2024.
The information is the most complete available as notaires cover all property sales. Due to the time it takes to compile the data, full information is only available now for the end of 2024. However, preliminary information for the start of 2025 is also given and points towards the market slowly growing in the first few months to date.
In this article we look at houses that are non-new build, i.e they have been purchased at least once before and are being sold again, or have existed for at least five years and are being sold for the first time.
The notaires state that in the final quarter of 2024, areas outside of France’s capital region saw an overall increase in non-new build house and flat prices, the first time since the property market began its post-Covid slump.
The information below compares price changes for established houses in October 1 - December 31, 2024 compared to the same dates in 2023.
Several cities see prices rise but some see large falls
The information spells good news for many homeowners looking to put their property on the market.
A number of cities saw house prices rise overall last year, bucking earlier trends that saw price drops across the board.
A handful of cities stood out, with the highest price increases recording in:
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Montauban (Tarn-et-Garonne): +6.2%
Metz (Moselle): +3.4%
Caen (Calvados): +3.2%
Orléans (Loiret): +3.1%
Limoges (Haute-Vienne) and Brest (Finistère): +2.4%
Despite these cities – and some notable others including Lille – seeing rises overall, several areas saw significant drops, including three areas where prices fell more than -10%:
Châteauroux (Indre): -16.2%
Corse-du-Sud: -14%
Reims (Marne): -11%
Tours (Indre-et-Loire): -9.9%
Amiens (Somme): -9.6%
Other cities to see heavy falls were Montpellier (Hérault) (-8.8%) and Lyon (Rhône) (-8.4%).
Nantes, the largest city to see multiple drops of -10% in previous datasets, fared much better for the 2024 year, with prices falling -3.1%.
South remains most expensive area to buy
The data also shows that national trends remained essentially unchanged.
Cities in the south and in coastal regions remain the most expensive to purchase houses in, with the centre being the cheapest, especially smaller more isolated cities.
Prices in these areas are higher in the south due to factors such as the weather, as well as the scarcity (there are fewer ‘houses’ in some larger cities compared to flats).
Note that house prices in Paris are included as part of the wider Île-de-France region, which brings down overall prices and means the region is not the most expensive.
When looking solely at non-new build flats, Paris is around twice as expensive per m² than the next city on the list.
In addition, some other cities including Rennes and Nice do not have house prices included in the data, due to the relatively small number of houses in these areas compared to flats.
The most expensive cities/areas for none-new build houses are:
Larger cities in the west with average prices above €300,000 include Toulouse ( Haute-Garonne) (€300,000 exactly), Bordeaux (Gironde) (€333,100) and Nantes (Loire-Atlantique) (€319,700).
In comparison, the cheapest cities remain largely in central areas of the country, and parts of the north:
