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Rising French population to impact property prices

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A rebirth of French rural communities as communication improves and immigration increases the overall population will soon start to bite on French property prices, says the French National Statistics Office (Insee)

The demographic change has been revealed by the 2004 national consensus, which has also shown the rising levels of immigration to France from across the world and especially the UK, currently standing at 50,000 a year.

The current population of 62 million will rise to 75 million by 2050 says Gilles de Robien, minister for development, tourism and urban environment, with a profound affect on French property prices.

Changing modes of working and the rise of the internet has rejuvenated rural French communities, which have been in decline since the end of the second world war and left them open to purchase by British expats.

The smallest communities (those with less than 2,000 inhabitants) have seen the most dramatic change. These were places that lost many of their young people to urban areas between 1945 and 1970, before the population began to shift again from the cities to the suburbs in 1975 – 1990.

From 1999 to today, however, the French have been returning to their rural roots in the very same small Gallic communities so beloved by UK property buyers. The French are also discovering the joys of second home ownership in increasing numbers

The trend is so pronounced that the previously declining French population will soon need to consider large swathes of new housing across green field sites to cope with the influx. The number of new homes has been rising at a rate of 300,000 annually, below the number of new households founded every year.

The government will soon have to face up to how much construction it will permit and the levels of funding needed. The problem is concentrated in the Languedoc-Roussillon, the Central Pyrenees, Provence-Alps-Cote d'Azur, Aquitaine and the West (Brittany and the Loire area) regions.

Regions which were long in decline like Auvergne and Limousin are also now experiencing a population renewal. Mid size towns seem to be largely unaffected by the demographic changes.

Britain still accounts for 40 per cent of all French property sales to overseas buyers, with an increasing number of buyers looking for more practical property features, such as more modern construction and good transport links.

This is reflected by a rising number of buyers looking for more property in areas such as Limousine at the expense of the Mediterranean coast and Provence.

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