Grenoble attract buyers who wish to leave Lyon.

(Illustration) -

Thomas Samson

  • According to the 2020 real estate purchasing power report published this Monday by Meilleurtaux.com, the rise in prices in medium-sized cities is greater than those in large cities.

  • Le Mans, Toulon and Angers are the cities most affected by this phenomenon, explains

     Maël Bernier, spokesperson for the MeilleurTaux group

    , to

    20 Minutes

    .

  • According to her, buyers are mainly looking for medium-sized cities, close to large cities or accessible very quickly by train.

Real estate has been marked, like all other sectors, by the health crisis linked to Covid-19.

And with this checkered year, some unusual developments have occurred.

Meilleurtaux.com, which publishes its 2020 real estate purchasing power report on Monday, thus notes a rise in prices in medium-sized cities greater than those of large cities.

20 Minutes

asked Maël Bernier, spokesperson for the group, to find out more.

Maël Bernier, Meilleurtaux.com spokesperson - Maël Bernier

You titled your report for the year 2020 "Victims of their success, medium-sized cities are losing m²".

What does that mean ?

Every year, we calculate the real estate purchasing power according to the cities.

We take a couple who earn 3,000 euros monthly and who can repay 1,000 euros in credit every month.

We then take an interest rate observed over the year and we obtain a borrowing capacity.

It is then enough to compare the surface that this couple can buy in different cities of France from one year to the next.

Thanks to this calculation, we found that prices per square meter in medium-sized cities are increasing, and therefore that the area accessible to buyers is shrinking.

In 2020, some cities have moved a lot.

Le Mans (- 14m²), Toulon (- 11m²) and Angers (- 16m²) saw the biggest drops in real estate purchasing power from our barometer.

According to SeLoger's figures, Mulhouse even saw its prices per square meter explode by 16.5%.

These cities are symptomatic because they are not expensive to begin with, so their increase is impressive.

But more expensive cities like Nantes or Montpellier (- 8m²) have changed significantly.

Conversely, large cities like Paris (+ 1%) or Bordeaux (- 2%) have rather stagnated.

What explains these increases in mid-sized cities?

Demand, and only demand.

It increased under the effect of the health crisis and teleworking.

These figures are calculated over the year but before confinement, nothing was moving at Le Mans, for example.

And from the deconfinement, the rise in demand was meteoric.

Even Angers, more dynamic for real estate, was not in a comparable situation.

The confinement made many employees and employers realize that teleworking is possible.

For many people in big cities, there was the effect “I thought I would do it for a long time, now I'm going”.

Big companies are closing their headquarters in big cities and asking their executives to come only one day a week.

In this case, what is the point of continuing to live in 50 m² in Paris, for example, when you can have a house in the city center with 4 or 6 large bedrooms and a garden in a smaller town?

Especially if they have the sea nearby, like Le Havre, or a view of the mountains, like Valence.

Cities that were somewhat overlooked by buyers are finding their way back.

For executives of large companies who only go to Paris one day a week, this is the opportunity to find a better quality of life with more space.

And for employees whose incomes are more modest, if teleworking is possible, it is the possibility of buying, which they probably would not have been able to do in a big city.

Assessment of real estate purchasing power in various cities established by Meilleurtaux.com (SeLoger LPI Barometer figures) - Meilleurtaux.com

Does this mean that the urban exodus, which was predicted after the first confinement, did not actually take place towards the countryside?

It's possible.

The country search translates more to second homes, and it is possible to find them within an hour of major cities.

Buyers are mainly looking for medium-sized cities, close to large cities or accessible very quickly by train.

There is also a search for advantages such as the sea, the mountains or the sun.

Saint-Etienne, the cheapest city in France, will develop, like Reims, Amiens or Grenoble.

Mid-sized cities will benefit from this.

And this is a trend that we see everywhere in the territory.

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  • Covid 19

  • Housing

  • Coronavirus

  • Deconfinement

  • Confinement

  • Immovable

  • Economy