The average price per m² in Arcachon is 7 680 €/m² for an apartment, based on actual notarised (DVF) sales. About 304 transactions are recorded each year.
Illustration of Arcachon, on the bay, in the Gironde.
The average price of apartments in Arcachon stands at 7 680 €/m², based on DVF (the French notarised sales database) transactions actually recorded at the notary. This average covers a very mixed housing stock: seafront blocks of the Ville d'été (Summer Town), heritage villas and chalets of the Ville d'hiver (Winter Town), 1960s-to-1980s seaside residences towards the Abatilles and Le Moulleau, and fishermen's houses around the Aiguillon. The view over the bay, the aspect, the floor level and the distance to the beach cause the value of a property to vary widely. The municipal territory does not exceed eight square kilometres, hemmed in between the bay and the forest of La Teste-de-Buch, and almost entirely built up.
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 7 416 €/m² in 2021, the average price in Arcachon reaches 7 680 €/m² in 2026, an increase of roughly +4 % over the period.
The Arcachon market stays liquid despite the municipality's modest size, with on the order of three hundred apartment sales recorded each year in the DVF data. This turnover owes to the structure of the stock, two-thirds made up of apartments, and to the considerable share of second homes, which change hands more often than year-round dwellings. New supply, for its part, remains marginal: the municipal territory is small, bordered by the bay on one side and by the commons forest of La Teste-de-Buch on the other, and projects are limited to rebuilds on already-built plots.
Several drivers sustain this price level. The closeness of Bordeaux, about fifty minutes away by train, has brought Arcachon nearer to the metropolitan employment area and its workers, a movement amplified since remote working became widespread. Tourism, oyster farming and boating support a year-round service economy, rounded out by a large retired population. Conversely, the tax pressure on second homes and the control of furnished tourist rentals seek to return dwellings to the permanent housing market, a challenge shared by all the municipalities around the bay.
Arcachon sits clearly above the municipalities of the Bordeaux metropolitan area, including Bordeaux itself, some fifty kilometres away. The most telling comparison is with the seaside resorts of the Atlantic coast, where levels nonetheless stay lower.
Arcachon has only existed as a municipality since the imperial decree of 2 May 1857, which detached the seaside district from La Teste-de-Buch. Until then, the site was no more than a string of huts belonging to fishermen and resin-tappers along the edge of the bay, backed by the pine forest stabilised under the First Empire. The railway changed everything: the Bordeaux-to-La Teste line, opened in 1841, was extended to the seafront in 1857 by the Compagnie des chemins de fer du Midi, founded in 1852 by the bankers Émile and Isaac Pereire. Napoleon III stayed here in 1859 and again in 1863, which finished establishing the reputation of the young resort.
To make their line pay, the Pereire brothers bought some sixty hectares of wooded dune on the heights and, from the spring of 1862, launched the Ville d'hiver (Winter Town) there. The project was led by Paul Régnauld, Émile Pereire's nephew: streets and lanes drawn in curves to break the wind corridors, plots without masonry fencing, vegetation preserved. The district was conceived as an open-air sanatorium for lung patients, in keeping with the climate thinking of the day. Chalets of Swiss, neo-Gothic or Moorish inspiration were built there, the Saint-Paul footbridge in 1862, the Sainte-Cécile observatory and the Moorish casino in 1863. The latter burned down in 1977.
The town was then organised into four districts tied to the seasons, a feature that still shapes its layout. The Ville d'été (Summer Town) occupies the seafront, with the jetties, the beaches and the holiday buildings. The Ville d'automne (Autumn Town), around the Aiguillon and Saint-Ferdinand, keeps the fishing port, the low houses of the sailors and the marina. The Ville de printemps (Spring Town) covers the Abatilles and the Pereire sector, to the west, where the Sainte-Anne des Abatilles spring was discovered in 1923 during drilling. The Ville d'hiver (Winter Town), on the dune, was protected as early as 1943 and then listed as an ensemble in 1985, which today governs works on its villas.
Arcachon has 11 092 inhabitants. According to INSEE (the French national statistics institute), the municipality counts around 17 900 dwellings, of which close to 37 % are main homes and 62 % second homes: the population actually present varies severalfold between winter and summer. Still according to INSEE, apartments make up about 67 % of the stock, and 61 % of the main homes are occupied by their owners. Buyers are split between households working on the bay or in the Bordeaux metropolitan area, retirees settling in year-round, and second-home buyers mainly from the Gironde and Paris. Small units near the beaches and the centre remain the most sought-after.
The average price of apartments in Arcachon is 7 680 €/m², based on DVF transactions actually recorded at the notary. This average covers large gaps depending on the view over the bay, the floor level, the presence of a balcony or garden, the condition of the property and its distance to the beach. A seafront apartment and a dwelling in the rear districts do not trade at the same level.
The seafront of the Ville d'été (Summer Town), between the Thiers jetty and the Eyrac jetty, concentrates the highest values, with front-facing buildings rarely put back on the market. The Ville d'hiver (Winter Town), on the wooded dune, forms a second upmarket sector, held up by its status as a protected ensemble and by the scarcity of its villas. The Aiguillon, the Abatilles and the Pereire sector remain more affordable depending on the street and the aspect.
Arcachon station, the terminus of the line opened in 1857, is linked to Bordeaux Saint-Jean by direct regional (TER) trains in around fifty minutes, with high-speed (TGV) connections to Paris. By car, the A660 motorway joins the A63 and then the Bordeaux ring road. The local bus network and the bay's cycle paths serve Le Moulleau, La Teste-de-Buch and the shoreline of the bay, all very busy in season.
Arcachon is classed as a high-demand area (zone tendue) and is among the bay municipalities that have voted a surcharge on the taxe d'habitation (the local residence tax) for second homes, with close to two dwellings in three affected. Short-term furnished tourist rentals are also subject to local registration and control rules. These arrangements change from one year to the next: their exact terms should be checked with the town hall before any project.
The market is mostly apartments: according to INSEE, around 67 % of the municipality's dwellings are apartments, and the reference price of 7 680 €/m² relates to that segment. Houses are concentrated in the Ville d'hiver (Winter Town), in the Abatilles and around the Aiguillon, within an older fabric that is hard to extend for lack of free land. They are rare on the market and trade above the level of apartments.
This analysis is published by Immover, an independent observatory founded by Antony Barbier. Data sourced from official sources (DVF, INSEE, Notaries of France).