Greater Paris real estate: the unexpected list of 20 cities where it is good to live… and invest

This is not exactly yet another list of cities in which to invest in real estate in Greater Paris. Nor is it the Ile-de-France version of the ranking of towns and villages in France where life is good. The observatory just unveiled by the Fnaim (National Federation of Real Estate Agents) of Greater Paris on the real estate attractiveness of nearly 300 cities in Greater Paris * is unprecedented.

Admittedly, the tool traditionally crosses data on real estate prices. But, new fact, it passes each city to the sieve of 11 additional criteria on the basis of data making it possible to measure the attractiveness of it. These data are objective and non-qualitative, specify the authors of the observatory and they are issued by official sources (Insee, Ministries, town hall statistics, etc.).

“The objective of this new observatory, commented Olivier Princivalle, deputy president of the Fnaim du Grand Paris, is to provide a tool based on the rating criteria of each municipality of Greater Paris to determine, according to the expectations of future buyers or tenants where it is good to live and where it is easier to buy to settle there. »

In terms of methodology, the 12 criteria used are: the price of housing, its quality (rate of central heating equipment, age and surface area of ​​housing, etc.), security (physical violence, damage to property, criminality …), health (number of GPs per 100 inhabitants, number of hospital beds per km², etc.), education (crèches, colleges, high schools, etc.), public transport (metro, RER, bus, travel time home/work, etc., the environment (surface of green spaces per inhabitant, changes in car use, etc.), commerce (number of shops every 100 meters, etc.) , employment (unemployment rate, etc.), culture (museums, theatres, stadiums, gymnasiums, etc.), income and finally local taxation (housing and property taxes).

Multi-criteria interactive map

Each of the criteria is assigned a score from 1 to 10, then weighted by a coefficient. It should be noted that to establish the real estate price, the observatory is based on the average price of housing for each municipality. This is determined by multiplying the price per m² by the average area of ​​housing for residential use in each of the towns. “It avoids the pitfall of presenting a price per m² which does not represent the average purchase or the average value of goods in a city”, notes the Observatory.

Concerning the selected cities, and for Paris, each arrondissement is considered as a city in its own right. Furthermore, for the entire ranking, the price factor was isolated from the criteria in order to understand its impact and correlation with the attractiveness of a municipality. And, thanks to an interactive map already available online, you can search for a municipality with prices or without housing prices, by criterion of attractiveness or by combining three criteria out of twelve. The map also displays real estate agencies that are members of La Fnaim du Grand Paris ( www.fnaim-grand-paris.fr ) and to make public transport lines (metro and RER) visible.

Villages of character in 91 and 78

The original construction of the indicator shuffles the cards of the cities of Greater Paris which traditionally take the lead in this type of ranking on real estate attractiveness. In the Top 20 of the Observatory, which has both ranked the cities with the price of housing and without the price of housing, the big winners are rather small towns, often villages of character, located in the second ring. Parisian (see illustration).

Thus, Milly-la-Forêt, in Essonne, in the regional natural park of Gâtinais, wins the palme d’or with the best score out of 297 cities in the ranking with the price of real estate. It is still in third place if we exclude the price criterion. Similarly, Boigneville, another village of character in Essonne, takes third place, while in Yvelines, the charming village of Montfort-l’Amaury takes 5th place.^e place of this Top 20. Note, in the category of the largest cities, the good score of Versailles, 5th out of 20, in the ranking without prices, and still present in the Top 20 but in 17th place, if we takes into account the price criterion.

The Parisian arrondissements, such as the 6th, 8th, 5th, 9th, 2nd, 3rd and 4th, are very well represented when the housing price criterion is not included. It should be noted that they are also often penalized by the “security” criterion due to the number of complaints in areas heavily frequented by tourists (museums, etc.).

* Study of 297 cities in Ile-de-France, excluding Seine-et-Marne (77). Average property price data for apartments (Fnaim and Insee at the end of April 2022).