The real estate markets are still under tension according to the economic situation established, this Wednesday, October 2 in Colmar, by the notaries of Alsace and Moselle for the period from 1is July 2023 to June 30, 2024. The decline in sales volumes, relating to new and old apartments, as well as old houses and building land, reached the levels of 2015-2016, being down 27% in the Bas-Rhin, 26% in Haut-Rhin and 20% in Moselle.
In one year, the median price per m2 old apartments fell by 6.1% in Haut-Rhin to stand at €1,780/m2. That of new apartments recorded a fall of 5.3% in Bas-Rhin to €3,920/m2. Of these three territories, Moselle stands out with an erosion of 5.9% in the sale prices of old houses.
If disparities exist, particularly for building land and whose median price across Haut-Rhin now stands at 100,000 euros (up +10.6%), this can be explained by in relation to the geographical location of Saint-Louis, next to Switzerland and Germany, which attracts more and more cross-border workers.
Political instability as a brake on market recovery
If the three chambers of notaries of Bas-Rhin, Haut-Rhin and Moselle want to believe more in “a landing” than in “the explosion of a speculative bubble”, the general policy speech delivered last Tuesday by Michel Barnier could brighten the horizon of the real estate sector. Especially if the ZAN (Zero Net Artificialization) regulations evolve “in a pragmatic and differentiated manner”, in the words of the Prime Minister.
What to strengthen the profession? “Everything is improving: prices have fallen as have interest rates and salaries are tending to increase. Unfortunately, we do not have the dynamic we hoped for,” estimates Catherine Merlin, president of the Moselle chamber of notaries. Thus, this surge would have been stopped at the beginning of last summer, with the dissolution of the National Assembly, while Gabriel Weyl, his counterpart in Bas-Rhin, noted “a tremor in the market”.
