> The market report  - July 2011

ANALYSIS
The resale market: an increasingly diverse and active market

Volumes no longer catching up ?

After the significant fall seen in late 2008 and in the first half of 2009, the sales volume for resale properties in France as a whole has risen steadily since and reached 806,000 between April 2010 and March 2011, a 23% improvement on the same period a year earlier. However, this development has waned since the start of the year, as between 2009 and 2010, the increase reached +32%. In the 1st quarter of 2011, over the provinces as a whole, volumes were up 24% on the 1st quarter of 2010, but down 3% in relation to the 4th quarter of 2010. This seasonal fall is normal. In Ile-de-France, the number of properties sold in the first quarter of 2011 showed a slight contraction (-4%) compared to the 1st quarter of 2010, so it is necessary to wait for the figures for the next quarter in order to verify whether this trend is confirmed.

> The market Report - January 2011

2011 kicks off to a good start, but what about afterwards?
 

While the French Notariat is in the final stages of collecting the 2010 deeds of sale,the prices of old property as a whole seem to have sharply increased.
The Notaires de France/INSEE (Institut national de la statistique et des études économiques – French National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies) indexes revealed an +8.5% annual variation in the prices of old apartments as at 1 October 2010, i.e. an increase virtually identical to the 8.7% increase in old house prices.
However, the gap between the Ile-de France regionand the provinces appears to be greater in the old apartment market than in the house market, which is more consistent.
We should not forget, however, certain geographic areas where prices have dropped are not included in the significant price increase. On the other hand, the overall market has returned to the 2000- 2007 volumes increasing from over 590,000 sales in 2009 and almost 800,000 in 2010.
The trend is mainly due to the fact that property investment seems a safer bet than investment in the financial markets.