Each month, real estate professionals establish the level of market credit rates. Each quarter a report on the number of transactions is carried out. For example, last July, the number of real estate transactions had declined “a little over 20%” since 2022, calculated the Notaries of France. Last key concept: the selling price. On this essential point, the National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies provides valuable insight in a study which runs from the year 2000 to 2022. These have more than doubled in just over twenty years.
Precisely, “real estate prices were multiplied by 2.6” writes INSEE. This illustrates another fact: the household housing budget has exploded to become, by far, their number one item of household expenditure ahead of food. The shift dates from the early 1980s and not necessarily during the 2010s when rates were low. At the same time, wages have also not kept up with the momentum.
As a result, in 2022, 26.7% of the French spending budget is devoted to housing (rent, loan repayments, water, gas, electricity bills), i.e. twice as much as for food (13. 5%). In addition, housing accounts for 34% of expenses for the poorest and only 20% for the wealthiest.
Prices are exploding but big gaps remain
Today “the median price per m² of an old house (i.e. built more than a year ago) is €2,040 and that of an old apartment reaches €3,170”explains INSEE. But “on the one hand, one house in ten is sold for less than €850 per m², on the other, one in ten is sold for more than €4,360 per m²”When “a tenth of the apartments are sold for less than €1,350 and at the other end a tenth for more than €8,240 per m².”
For comparison, according to the Se Loger platform, in October 2024, the average price per square meter in France, on the real estate market, is €3,065. The apartments have an average price of €3,828/m², varying from €2,508 for the most accessible to €5,573. For houses, the average price is €2,474/m², with estimates ranging from €1,579 to €3,391.
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Prices which have enabled 6 out of 10 households to be owners in France currently out of a total of 38.2 million homes, of which 3.7 million are second homes and 6 million are thermal sieves.
Differences of 1 to 3, minimum depending on the departments
Averages and medians sometimes clash with geographic realities. “The price of houses is particularly low in the municipalities of the “low density diagonal”, going from the south of the Massif Central to the Ardennes, to the east of Hauts-de-France, as well as within Brittany »specifies INSEE. In Creuse, Haute-Marne, Indre, Meuse and Nièvre, which are the departments where houses are the cheapest, the median price per m² does not exceed €1,000. In contrast, the median price per m² exceeds €3,000 in the departments of Île-de-France, Alpes-Maritimes, Corse-du-Sud, Haute-Savoie, Bouches-du-Rhône, Rhône, Gironde and Var.
“Real estate prices are higher on average when population density increases, reflecting local tensions in the real estate market. In mainland France, they are lowest in rural areas, and highest in the centers of large cities. Tourism is another factor of local tensions which pushes prices upwards”writes INSEE.
In urban areas with more than 700,000 inhabitants, house prices in the most central areas of the city are on average twice as high as those in the most peripheral areas. The differences in house prices are less marked in areas of 200,000 to 700,000 inhabitants. On the other hand, in Île-de-France, on average, the most central houses are 80% more expensive than the furthest away. Conversely, “in areas of less than 50,000 inhabitants, the most expensive houses are not in the heart of the city, but between 1 and 3 km from the center, specifies the study. Their price is on average a quarter higher than that of the most central houses. »
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