The notaires have recently published their analysis of the movement of house prices in 2013 for each department of France.

The Notaires de France may be painfully slow in the production of their property market reports, but the information they provide is generally regarded as more authoritative than that produced by FNAIM, the association of French estate agents, who published their own analysis of 2013 several months ago.

Nevertheless, there is a surprising degree of convergence between them on the general trend, which shows that on a national basis the prices of houses fell by an average of around 2% last year.

Where the two bodies diverge significantly is in the number of sales, with FNAIM reporting a downturn of 5% in volume, whilst the notaires, with their more comprehensive database, report that sales actually increased by 3% over 2012 to reach 723,000. That was a surprising result, suggesting that the market is not as blocked as many had thought was the case.

One of the key weaknesses of both reviews is that the analysis is drawn primarily from transactions in the main urban areas of each department, so they do not fully reflect what is happening to properties in rural areas, the market of primary interest to international buyers and sellers. As we have stated in previous Newsletters, this has been a slow market in recent years, particularly in the middle to upper end, so prices for such properties are likely to have fallen more than is indicated here.

With this caveat, the following table from the notaires shows the average price for older property in each provincial department of France at the end of 2013, together with the average change in price for the year. The prices exclude any estate agent's commission.

The figures are indicative only, as there are substantial variations within each department by size, location and condition of property.

The notaires state that the largest falls in the year were in the Limousin region, where prices fell in all three departments - Creuze (-9.6%), Corrèze (-7.9%) and Haute-Vienne (-7.6%). This is a significant downturn from 2012, when prices rose marginally in all three departments.

There were also substantial average regional falls last year in Franche-Comté (-5.4%), Burgundy (-4.7%) and Champagne-Ardenne (-4.5%).

Perhaps the most notable fall was in Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur, where prices in the department of Alpes-Maritimes fell by -7.1%, having also fallen in 2012 by -3.1%. Nevertheless, with house prices still averaging €420,000 the department remains the most expensive in France outside of the Ile-de-France.

By contrast, the Creuze in Limousin has the cheapest house prices in France, averaging €74,000. Other departments where house prices average under €100,000 are Haute-Marne (€86,500) in Champagne-Ardenne, Nièvre (€90,000) in Burgundy, Allier (€91,000) in Auvergne, Ariège (€95,000) in the Midi-Pyrénées and Indre (€95,000) in the Centre region.

Source: Notaires de France

Price Trends

By examining the trend in house prices over the past three years a better picture can be obtained of the state of the market in each of the departments.

What this shows is that the only regions where prices have fallen across the entire region each year for the past three years has been in Alsace, Burgundy, Lower Normandy and Upper Normandy. However, in all cases the cumulative fall has been under 10%.

Beyond these regions, at a departmental level, consecutive falls over the past three years have occurred in Dordogne, Lot-et-Garonne, Côte d'Amour, Eure-et-Loir, Pyrénées-Orientales, Moselle, Ariège, Hautes-Pyrénées, Vendée, Charente, Bouches-du-Rhône, Var, and Isère.

Only one department shows three years of positive growth in house prices, that being Gironde in the region of Aquitaine, largely driven by the buoyant market in and around Bordeaux.

The overwhelming majority of departments show a fall in house prices over the past two years, although only in Lorraine (Meuse and Vosges) do they reach double digit proportions, and the vast majority are under -5%.