In January, real estate prices fell by 2% on average in France. If the big cities suffer from this loss of speed, those of average size continue to attract.
After two good years, real estate prices are falling, especially in many large cities.
“The party is over,” said Guillaume Martinaud, president of the ORPI cooperative at the microphone of BFM Business.
In January year on year, prices fell by an average of 2% nationwide. They even collapsed in certain metropolises such as Nantes (-29%) or Lille (-17%).
A market that is no longer so “tonic”
“We have a rebalancing which is perhaps brutal,” he says before adding “what is certain is that we feel it very clearly in our agencies, there is no longer a queue […] I think sellers are figuring out that it’s not so vibrant anymore.”
In Paris as well as in Lyon and Toulouse, prices fell by 8% in the first month of the year compared to January 2022. Guillaume Martinaud notes all the same that it is “disparate” and that certain large cities like Cannes or Marseille have seen their prices increase.
But it is especially in medium-sized cities that prices have not slowed down, on the contrary. They are still victims of their successes while the bulk of the health crisis, which initiated or at least accelerated this exodus from the metropolises, has passed.
“What is happening now is salutary”
In Chambéry (Savoie), prices per square meter jumped 50% while in Vichy (Allier), they took 44% in January, among other examples of these sharp increases.
“We have a lot more people looking to come and live in these small provincial towns than to leave,” notes Guillaume Martinaud.
“There is a profound change in habit,” he says.
The French have learned to work differently, aspire to more peace of mind and have a different relationship with their housing, he explains.
“I think what’s happening now is healthy,” he said of the drop in prices following two years of being “way too high.”