French Riviera Real Estate: Notaries fear 2013 will be a bad year

French Riviera Home on a Hill

This Wednesday the Chamber of Notaries of the Alpes-Maritimes announced their numbers for real estate sales in 2012.

The most significant finding is a large decrease in the number of transactions, most notably a 17% decrease in the number of transactions of pre owned or used apartments. Interestingly, even with the reduction in the number of transaction prices for the used apartments has remained at approximately 3900 € / m2.

Overall according Hervé Paillard, president of the Departmental Chamber of Notaries,  2012 is considered a “balanced [year]” because the sale price offsetting the decline in the volume of transactions.

However, M. Paillard is much more pessimistic about the real estate market on the French Riviera in 2013.

“We recorded a decrease of one third of the sales agreements signed at the beginning of this year, compared to last year,” he says.

2013 could well look like 2009, the year in the black sector of real estate.

Read the original article in French here