The average price of a building plot in France remained unchanged in 2015 at €78m², but prices vary enormously both within and between regions.

The French government have recently published their annual review of building land prices in France, which this year uses the 13 new administrative regions as the basis of the analysis.

As a result, comparisons with previous years are no longer possible, and such is the size of the regions that the figures are of very little practical value. It is to be hoped that there is a move to a departmental analysis in the future.

In order to mitigate the worst effects of the current gigantism, the table below contains, not only the regional average figures, but those for the 1st to 3rd quartiles. By doing so, the disparity across each region is clearly demonstrated; prices within in region each vary by a factor of at least 3 between the lowest and the highest quartiles.

There are also significant variations between the regions, with the lowest average prices in Bourgogne-Franche-Comté €45m², whilst highest average prices are in the Ile-de-France (€201m²).

However, if the lowest 25% of prices (Q1) are examined then building land prices in parts of Aquitaine-Limousin-Poitou-Charentes (€26m²) are comparable to the lowest in Bourgogne-Franche-Comté (€25m²).

The low Q1 figure in Aquitaine-Limousin-Poitou-Charentes no doubt reflects the fact that the department of Limousin has consistently the lowest land prices in France, with prices last year in this department averaging €18m².

In all cases, it should also be noted that most of the prices are based on sales taking place in the urban areas of France; in many rural areas prices are signficantly lower, although, as always, it will depend upon size, scarcity and location.

Accompanying the land price analysis, the review also provides figures on building construction costs, which show that the average build cost last year was €1,322m² (but with regional variations), an increase of 1.3% on 2014. The average house size was 121m².

That gave a total average land and construction cost of €227,000, with the land representing around one-third of the cost, although rising to up to 49% of total cost in the Ile-de-France.

Source: SOeS, EPTB 2015