The average price per m² in Beaufort is 5 017 €/m² for an apartment, based on actual notarised (DVF) sales. About 27 transactions are recorded each year.
Atmospheric illustration of Beaufort, the chief town of the Beaufortain, in Savoie.
The average price recorded in Beaufort stands at 5 017 €/m². This average covers a vast mountain territory of nearly 150 km², which brings together the chief town at the bottom of the Doron valley, the village of Arêches, the hamlet of Boudin and around ten other hamlets spread between 700 and more than 2 000 metres of altitude. It mixes chalets and old village houses, homes of year-round residents and holiday properties close to the Arêches-Beaufort ski area. The figures come from the DVF database (the French record of notarised property sales), which lists the transactions actually registered with 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 Beaufort market depends first on the appeal of the Beaufortain as a preserved massif. Lacking a large linked ski area and a railway station, the valley has escaped the intensive development of the Tarentaise resorts, which feeds second-home demand in search of authenticity and nature. The weight of second homes, 57,1 % of the stock according to INSEE, shows how much buyers who do not live in the municipality year-round support prices. The family resort of Arêches-Beaufort, valued for cross-country skiing and ski touring, anchors this custom without causing the swings of the very large resorts.
New supply remains limited by the terrain, natural hazards and the rules of the mountain zone, which shifts activity towards the renovation of the old village and chalet stock. The local economy, resting on the dairy farming of Beaufort, the Roselend hydroelectricity and tourism, keeps an active permanent population, but the demographic decline, the municipality having lost inhabitants since 2017, tightens the year-round housing market. Family properties that can be lived in all year and are well oriented are more contested there than the small resort studios.
At the heart of the Beaufortain, Beaufort holds an intermediate price level for the area: more affordable than Hauteluce and its access to Les Saisies, a little above Notre-Dame-de-Bellecombe in the neighbouring Val d'Arly, and clearly more expensive than Albertville, the gateway town to the valley.
The name Beaufort refers to a fortified place, beautiful and strong. The settlement was first called Luce, after a Roman villa, then in the 13th century took the name of its parish, Saint-Maxime. The first lords of Beaufort appear in the 10th century: tradition credits Bernard de Beaufort, around 923, with building a castle to resist Saracen raids. In 1271, Guillaume de Beaufort handed this castle over to Béatrice de Faucigny for 1 525 livres. The Treaty of Paris of 1355 definitively attached Beaufort to Count Amédée VI of Savoy, and a new charter was adopted in 1368 after peasant revolts.
In the modern era, the valley remained a land of mountain pastures and village communities. King Henri IV stayed at the château de La Sallaz from 10 to 12 October 1600. In 1667, the Beaufortain was raised to a barony. Settlement was divided between the chief town and the high-altitude hamlets: Arêches obtained permission for Sunday masses as early as 1575, saw its parish separated from Beaufort in 1803, then its church built in 1829. This organisation into scattered villages, each with its mountain pastures and its buildings of stone and wood, still explains today the fragmented shape of the municipality, stretched over nearly 150 km².
The 20th century transformed the local economy. The Roselend dam, completed in 1961, flooded the old hamlet of the same name and made the municipality a major site of Alpine hydroelectric production. That same year, the producers founded the Beaufortain dairy cooperative to revive cheese making: Beaufort gained its appellation d'origine contrôlée (registered designation of origin) in 1968, then AOP status in 1996. In parallel, the Arêches-Beaufort resort developed around skiing and the heritage of the massif. Mountain farming, hydroelectricity and mid-sized-resort tourism have since formed the three pillars of a valley that has stayed apart from the large-scale development of the neighbouring Tarentaise.
According to INSEE (France's national statistics institute), Beaufort has 1 989 inhabitants and a housing stock where main residences make up only 35,1 %, against 57,1 % second homes and 7,9 % vacant dwellings. The stock is split almost evenly between apartments, 50,1 %, and houses, 49,9 %. Among the permanent residents, 70,4 % own their home. Two clienteles therefore coexist. On one side, local families and workers from farming, services and tourism, attached to a house or chalet lived in year-round. On the other, second-home buyers, often Savoyard or coming from the big cities, looking for a pied-à-terre close to the Arêches-Beaufort slopes and the mountain pastures.
The average price recorded is 5 017 €/m², calculated from sales registered with notaries and published in the DVF database. It is a municipal average, bringing together the chief town, the village of Arêches and the high-altitude hamlets. Aspect, altitude, proximity to the slopes and the condition of the building create noticeable gaps from one area to another. A real sale price is based on nearby comparables, not on this average alone.
They are two atmospheres within the same municipality. Beaufort, the chief town at the bottom of the Doron valley at around 750 metres, concentrates shops, the dairy cooperative and services, with village buildings lived in year-round. Arêches, higher up, is organised around the Arêches-Beaufort resort and hosts more chalets and holiday properties. The hamlet of Boudin, known for its traditional architecture, remains highly sought after. Seasonality and the use of the property differ markedly between these areas.
Beaufort is not served by rail: the nearest station is Albertville, about twenty kilometres away along the Doron road. This valley access, with no direct rail link and no very large linked ski area, keeps the municipality away from the pressure of the international resorts of the Tarentaise. Demand remains mostly regional, driven by buyers from Savoie, Lyon and Geneva looking for a mid-mountain setting more affordable than the large neighbouring resorts.
Yes, and the balance is unusual here. According to INSEE, the stock is split in almost equal parts between houses, 49,9 %, and apartments, 50,1 %, a rare proportion for a mountain municipality. Houses and chalets are found mainly in the chief town, in Arêches and in the hamlets, often in stone and wood in need of renovation. Apartments are concentrated near the resort. The sale references for a house depend heavily on condition, altitude and view, more than on the municipal average.
The municipality is classified as a mountain zone, which strictly governs the spread of development and protects the mountain pastures and the hamlet of Boudin. A natural-hazard prevention plan applies on the slopes and along the Doron: avalanches, floods and land movements must be checked before any purchase. At altitude, the costs of maintenance, heating and snow clearing weigh on the budget. The taxation of second homes, the majority in the municipality, is also worth anticipating.
This analysis is published by Immover, an independent observatory founded by Antony Barbier. Data sourced from official sources (DVF, INSEE, Notaries of France).