The average price per m² in Albertville is 2 328 €/m² for an apartment, based on actual notarised (DVF) sales. About 242 transactions are recorded each year.
Illustration of Albertville, at the confluence of the Arly and the Isère in Savoie.
The average price recorded in Albertville stands at 2 328 €/m². This average covers a housing stock that is largely made up of flats: according to INSEE, the national statistics institute, close to 77 % of the municipality's homes are apartments, many of them in blocks built between the 1960s and the decade of the Olympic Games. The centre rebuilt around the Dôme, the detached-house areas of the plain and the old houses of Conflans, on its promontory, do not sell at the same level. Social housing accounts for around a quarter of main residences, which also weighs on the structure of the market. The figures come from the DVF database, the French record of property sales registered by notaries.
Prices from the DVF file (Demandes de valeurs foncières, published by the DGFiP), transactions actually recorded at the notary at municipality level. Cross-referenced with the Notaires de France - INSEE indices. Learn more about our methodology.
The local market depends first on the valley's economy rather than on holiday tourism. Albertville is a hub of employment and services for the Tarentaise and the Beaufortain, with its industries inherited from electrometallurgy, its hospital, its secondary schools and its sub-prefecture functions. The 4 % of second homes recorded by INSEE confirm it: demand comes overwhelmingly from households that live here year-round, including seasonal workers and resort employees who cannot find housing at altitude. This base makes the market less volatile than that of the neighbouring mountain municipalities.
Two factors weigh on the coming years. On one side, vacancy reaches more than 10 % of the stock according to INSEE, a sign of an old stock that is hard to rent or sell as it is, and the energy renovation of buildings put up before 1990 is becoming a bargaining point. On the other, the pressure of housing for resort workers and the scarcity of buildable land on the valley floor, constrained by flood risks and the loi Montagne (France's mountain-planning law), limit new supply. Recent projects focus on reclaiming brownfield sites and renewing the centre rather than on sprawl.
A valley-floor town geared towards local employment rather than holiday living, Albertville sits clearly below the lakeside hubs of Annecy and Aix-les-Bains. The gap is more moderate with Chambéry, another basin town of the Savoie.
The site owes its fortune to its position, at the confluence of the Arly and the Isère, on the route linking the Rhône valley to the Alpine passes. The Romans set up a toll station here, Ad Publicanos, after conquering the region in 121 BC. In the Middle Ages, the fortified town of Conflans, perched on its promontory, held the fairs and markets of the crossing between Milan, Lyon and Vienne, and still keeps its ramparts and paved lanes today. At the end of the 12th century, a hospital establishment for travellers and pilgrims gave rise, lower down, to the town of L'Hôpital.
On 19 December 1835, King Charles-Albert of Sardinia signed the decree that joined Conflans and L'Hôpital into a single municipality, effective on 1 January 1836 and named Albertville after him. The embankment works on the Arly and the Isère, carried out in the 18th century, had drained the plain and made this valley-floor settlement possible. After the annexation of Savoie to France in 1860, Albertville became the sub-prefecture of the new department. The end of the 19th century and the start of the 20th brought hydro-powered electricity, metalworking and electrochemistry, including the neighbouring steelworks of Ugine, which anchored a working-class population and moved the town from a staging post to a small industrial town.
From 8 to 23 February 1992, Albertville hosted the 16th Winter Olympic Games, 2 152 athletes from 65 nations, whose events took place mainly in the resorts of the Tarentaise and the Beaufortain. The town held the two ceremonies, staged by Philippe Decouflé, and the speed-skating events. The event left facilities still in use, the Halle olympique, the Olympic park and the Dôme, which houses a theatre, a media library and a cinema, as well as the A430 motorway opened in 1991 from the A43. It is from this period that the current road layout and the extension of the plain districts date, around a centre that the climb up the promontory separates from Conflans.
According to INSEE, Albertville has 19 978 inhabitants and 11 474 homes, of which 9 804 are main residences. Second homes account for only 4 % of the stock: unlike the neighbouring resorts, the municipality is first and foremost a town of permanent residents. Apartments make up close to 77 % of homes, 55 % of households are tenants and social housing represents around a quarter of main residences. Buyers are therefore mainly households from the local area: first-time buyers, employees of the valley's industries, of the hospital and of the sub-prefecture's public services, seasonal workers and tourism employees looking to live here year-round without moving up to a resort. A minority of buyers come looking for a pied-à-terre giving access to the ski areas.
The average price recorded is 2 328 €/m², calculated from the transactions registered by notaries and published in the DVF database. It is a municipal average, bringing together very different situations: an apartment in the 1970s housing estates, a recent home in the centre and an old house in Conflans do not belong to the same segment. The condition of the property, its sun exposure on the valley floor and the presence of parking explain a good part of the gaps.
Conflans, the medieval town on its promontory, forms a market of its own, very narrow, made up of old houses and small units subject to heritage constraints. The town centre, around the Dôme and the shops, concentrates the supply of apartments and investment buildings. The plain, towards the Isère and the Olympic park, mixes apartment blocks from the 1960s to the 1990s and detached-house estates. The slopes rising towards the Val d'Arly offer the open views.
Both markets exist, but in very unequal proportions. According to INSEE, apartments make up close to 77 % of the municipality's homes, against 22 % houses. The supply of houses is therefore limited and concentrated on the plain estates and the slopes, with longer search times and fewer points of comparison. Apartment stock, more plentiful, covers a wide range, from the studio to the large family apartment.
The town sits at the crossroads of four valleys, the Tarentaise, the Val d'Arly, the Beaufortain and the Combe de Savoie. The A430 motorway, opened in 1991 before the Games, links it to the A43 towards Chambéry and Lyon, and the RN90 serves the Tarentaise resorts as far as Moûtiers. The station, on the Tarentaise line, receives direct services in season. This accessibility supports a demand from residents who work in the resorts while living in the valley.
The municipality is classified as a mountain zone, which frames the expansion of urban development. The valley floor is exposed to flooding of the Arly and the Isère and to torrential risks: the risk-prevention plan should be consulted before any purchase. In Conflans, the surroundings of the listed monuments require the opinion of the Architecte des Bâtiments de France (the state heritage architect) on facade, roofing and joinery work. Finally, an energy-performance assessment is essential on an old housing stock in an Alpine climate.
This analysis is published by Immover, an independent observatory founded by Antony Barbier. Data sourced from official sources (DVF, INSEE, Notaries of France).