Old properties: the expected price decrease remains very limited
The drop of real estate prices, which was planned after a 7% increase last year, seems to have been just an illusion. Indeed, despite the facts that unemployment keeps raising month after month purchasing power keeps getting weaker, and state benefits for buyers are decreasing, the price of the properties has hardly fallen. According to some real estate professionals, they would have fallen by only 2.6% for one year. In six regions the prices even keeps increasing, especially in Alsace, in Aquitaine, and in Franche-Comte. As a result, the average price in France nowadays is €2,623 per square meter.
Hardly started, this decreasing movement was already slowing down. According to the professionals, the market seems to be blocked because numerous sales fail due to the landlords’ refusal to decrease their property’s price, and when these sales do carry out, they take more time to be concluded.
As a consequence, the professionals do not predict a drop in the prices for this year. Moreover, they consider that the old real estate market will not slow down due to the drop of mortgage interest rates.
Actually, the buyers who wish to purchase properties with a drop in value have to pay attention and target the regions where the prices have been falling over the last twelve months, such as Upper Normandy or Languedoc-Roussillon. However, in Paris the prices keep climbing (+1.61 since June 2011) to reach the historical highest level of €8,478 per sqm, which is eight times more expensive than in Limousin, the cheapest region in terms of real estate. Moreover, buyers searching for a house are more likely to get a bargain than those who search for an apartment. Indeed, when the property prices fall, the drop is more spectacular for houses than for apartments.