The average price per m² in Alençon is 1 188 €/m² for an apartment, within a range of 0,9 to 1,4 k€ per m², based on actual notarised (DVF) sales. Over the period, the market rose 11 % over 5 years and fell 2,5 % over the last 12 months, with about 121 transactions per year.
Illustration of Alençon, prefecture town of the Orne, on the Sarthe between the forests of Écouves and Perseigne.
Apartments in Alençon sell at an average price of around 1 188 €/m², based on prices actually recorded (DVF data, the French notarised sales database). This is one of the lowest levels recorded for a prefecture town. Prices run from around 964 €/m² in Courteille to 1 497 €/m² in Villeneuve, a gap of 55 %. Houses, at 1 586 €/m², trade 34 % above apartments, a clear gap that comes from the nature of the Alençon flat stock, more than a third of which is social housing.
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.
After 1 073 €/m² in 2021, the average price in Alençon reaches 1 188 €/m² in 2026, around +11 % over the period.
Change in the average price per m² over twelve months, district by district, based on the most recent DVF sales.
The average price per m² for an apartment in each district of Alençon covered by Immover, ranked from the most expensive to the most affordable.
The Alençon market has risen over five years but is losing pace. The average apartment price went from 1 073 €/m² in 2021 to 1 173 in 2025, an 11 % rise over the period, with a high point in 2023 at 1 243 €/m² and a retreat since. Over the last twelve months the town loses 2,5 %. With 121 apartment sales a year, volume remains sufficient for those figures to be readable, but it is low for a prefecture town of 25 000 inhabitants, and on its own it says how narrow the owner-occupier market is in a town that is 64 % tenants.
Two features mark this market. The first is concentration: Centre-ville carries more than half the town's sales, which leaves little choice elsewhere and makes the averages of the other districts sensitive. The second is the divergence of trajectories between areas, more marked than the price ranking would suggest: over twelve months, Perseigne gains 4,2 % and Villeneuve 13,9 %, while Courteille loses 12,3 % and Lancrel 12,1 %. A third point deserves to be set out: the gap between houses and apartments, 34 %, is wider here than the average for towns of this size, and it reflects a stock of flats of which more than a third is social housing.
Alençon compared with the major French cities, on the average price per m² for an apartment.
Alençon did not begin where it stands today. The site occupied from Gaulish times is the limestone plateau of Montsort, in a bend of the Sarthe on the south bank, and in the Merovingian period it was that name, Montsort, that the town carried. Alençon appears in the tenth century, when the centre of power moves to the north bank, on the boundary that then separated the bishoprics of Le Mans and Sées. Guillaume Talvas, of the house of Bellême, had the first stronghold built there, its walls taking in two islands of the Briante, and William of Normandy laid siege to the place in 1051.
The town was English during the Hundred Years War, from October 1417 to 1449, and it was Duke Jean II d'Alençon, a companion of Joan of Arc, who freed it. The duchy was then regularly granted as an appanage to the sons of the kings of France, from the thirteenth to the eighteenth century: Marguerite d'Angoulême, sister of François Ier, held her court here, and Marguerite de Lorraine helped to complete the church of Saint-Léonard and the church of Notre-Dame, before founding the Poor Clares convent in 1497. The buildings still carry the trace of that history, in Alençon granite mixed with limestone, a stone low in iron that gives the central districts a look found nowhere else in Normandy.
Two things made the town's name, and they have nothing to do with one another. The first is point d'Alençon lace, a needle lace whose craft has been inscribed since 16 November 2010 on the UNESCO representative list of the intangible cultural heritage of humanity: about seven hours of work per square centimetre, seven to ten years of training, and a workshop now run by the Mobilier national. The second is Thérèse Martin, the future Saint Thérèse of Lisieux, born at 50 rue Saint-Blaise on 2 January 1873, whose family home has become a shrine. One date should be added: on 12 August 1944, Alençon was the first French town liberated by French forces, by General Leclerc's 2nd Armoured Division, without a shot fired and with its bridges over the Sarthe intact.
The twentieth century left another mark, a heavier one for the property market. Moulinex, a factory set up in 1937 by Jean Mantelet, where the vegetable mill was made, was the largest employer in the town and in its department. It was to house its workers that the Perseigne post-war housing estate was built between 1963 and 1969. The final closure of the firm in 2002, with close to a thousand staff, was a shock the town still carries: the plant was demolished in 2005 and nothing is left of it but the remnant known as the cathedral, while the block on boulevard Jean-Mantelet is listed as twentieth-century heritage. The population, for its part, fell from 31 656 inhabitants in 1968 to 25 490 in 2023.
Alençon is a town of tenants, and that is what governs its market: 64,1 % of households rent, 35,8 % of them in social housing, and 55 % of households are single-person. Private flats for sale are therefore few, and they are concentrated almost entirely in the centre: Centre-ville accounts for 63 apartment sales a year out of 121, more than half the town's market, while no other district goes beyond 23. Three buyer profiles meet here. Local first-time buyers, for whom a 65 m² apartment comes to around 77 000 €. Investors, in a market where rental demand is structurally strong, but where the vacancy rate and the social profile make the choice of address a careful one. And house buyers, in a segment trading 34 % higher per square metre, at 1 586 €. The point to keep in mind is that the district matters a great deal here: 55 % separates Villeneuve from Courteille, and that gap covers two distinct markets, the suburban west and the post-war estates of the east.
The average price in Alençon is 1 188 €/m² for an apartment (actual DVF transactions, notarised sales), within a range of 897 to 1 447 €/m² depending on the district. Property portals show asking prices, 10 to 20 % above the prices actually recorded.
Villeneuve, in the south-west, at 1 497 €/m², 26 % above the town-wide average. It is a quiet suburban area on the edge of Saint-Germain-du-Corbéis, taking in Guéramé and its park. Note the volume, however: it records only five apartment sales a year, which makes its average sensitive. Centre-ville, at 1 273 €/m², is the most expensive district among those with a real market in flats.
The average price of 1 188 €/m² is one of the lowest recorded for a prefecture town. Three causes combine: a population that fell from 31 656 inhabitants in 1968 to 25 490 in 2023, a stock that is 64,1 % rented, of which 35,8 % is social housing, which narrows the owner-occupier market by as much, and the absence of a direct rail link with Paris, which has kept the town away from Paris-region demand.
Houses trade at 1 586 €/m² against 1 188 for apartments, 34 % more, and the gap is sharper here than in many mid-sized towns. It comes from the nature of the Alençon flat stock, more than a third of which is social housing. Note the calculation convention: the price per square metre of a house covers the built area, whereas the price paid includes the land.
Both horizons have to be read. Over five years the town gains 11 %. Over the last twelve months it loses 2,5 %. The movement is not uniform: Perseigne gains 4,2 % over the year while Courteille and Lancrel lose 12 %. We publish both horizons rather than keeping the one that suits.
In Centre-ville, by a wide margin: 63 sales a year out of 121, more than half the town's market. Then comes Courteille with 23, then Croix-Mercier with 15. The other districts run between 5 and 8 sales a year. That concentration has a practical consequence: outside the centre, the choice of flats is limited and price averages are more sensitive.
Start with the district, whose effect is strong here, with 55 % between the most expensive and the most affordable. Then look at the period of construction: the old granite fabric of the centre does not compare with the 1960s blocks of Perseigne. Finally adjust for condition and energy rating, which weigh heavily in a market where supply is plentiful. The Immover valuation tool draws on the actual sales closest to your address.
This analysis is published by Immover, an independent observatory founded by Antony Barbier. Data sourced from official sources (DVF, INSEE, Notaries of France).