The average price per m² in Bobigny is 3 341 €/m² for an apartment, based on actual notarised (DVF) sales. About 105 transactions are recorded each year.
Atmospheric illustration of Bobigny, prefecture town of the Seine-Saint-Denis, in the inner suburbs of Paris.
The average price recorded in Bobigny stands at 3 341 €/m², based on DVF transactions actually registered before notaries (DVF is the French record of notarised property sales). The stock is largely made of apartments: after the Second World War the town filled with large housing complexes and estates built to house the working population of the north-eastern suburbs, to which are added older residential streets and recent schemes. The condition of the property, the floor level, closeness to the metro, the tram and the future Grand Paris Express stations, as well as energy performance, explain most of the gaps. That municipal average therefore mixes very different situations, from the apartment in a housing complex to the new-build dwelling. The figures come from the DVF database, which records sales signed before notaries: they give a municipal benchmark, to be refined property by property.
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 Bobigny market is read above all through its transport and its status as a prefecture town. The town attracts first-time buyers and working people of the Paris region who find there more contained prices than in the neighbouring municipalities close to Paris, while benefiting from the line 5 terminus and the T1 tram. The prospect of the Grand Paris Express, with new stations on its territory or at its boundary, sustains the interest of buyers anticipating a better connection to the metropolis. The large population and a stock made largely of apartments support steady demand.
Supply combines a substantial social housing stock and older housing complexes with new schemes delivered as development operations progress, notably near the canal de l'Ourcq and the stations. That reshaping creates a two-speed market: on one side recent or renovated dwellings close to transport, on the other an older fabric whose energy performance weighs more and more in negotiations. The classification of several districts under urban policy is a reminder that the municipality is still changing, which explains marked price gaps from one area to another.
Bobigny sits a little below its immediate neighbours Drancy and Noisy-le-Sec, and far from the prices of Pantin, closer to Paris: values rise clearly as you approach the capital.
The name Bobigny is thought to derive from a Gallo-Roman estate, Balbiniacum, the land of a certain Balbinius. Long a market-gardening village that supplied Paris with vegetables, the municipality is crossed by the canal de l'Ourcq, dug at the start of the nineteenth century to bring water and goods to the capital. That canal and the arrival of the railway brought, at the turn of the twentieth century, the setting up of warehouses and industry in the northern part of the territory, starting the change from rural village to suburban town.
Bobigny holds two major places of memory. The Franco-Muslim hospital was inaugurated on 22 March 1935, in a Moorish-inspired architecture by the architects Maurice Mantout and Léon Azéma; it became a university hospital in 1968 and took the name Avicenne in 1978. Not far away, between 1943 and 1944, Bobigny station became the departure point of the deportation convoys of Jews interned at the nearby Drancy camp, towards Auschwitz. The former station is today preserved as a place of memory.
The creation of the Seine-Saint-Denis department in 1968 changed the standing of the town: Bobigny became its prefecture town, and the administrative buildings went up around the place du parvis at the end of the 1960s and the start of the 1970s. The municipality gained facilities of departmental rank and hosts a campus of the Sorbonne Paris Nord university. Metro line 5 has its terminus there, at Bobigny-Pablo Picasso, extended by the T1 tram, pending the new Grand Paris Express stations.
According to the censuses, Bobigny has 56 927 inhabitants, on an inner-suburb territory crossed by the canal de l'Ourcq. The stock is largely made of apartments, marked by the weight of the large housing complexes and the social housing inherited from the post-war years, with a minority of houses in the older residential streets. Tenants are largely in the majority and owner-occupiers remain a minority, which reflects the social history of the town. Buyers are mainly first-time purchasers and working people employed in Paris or the inner suburbs, drawn by prices more affordable than in the better-served neighbouring municipalities. The planned arrival of the Grand Paris Express also feeds the interest of buyers anticipating better transport.
The average price recorded in Bobigny is 3 341 €/m², calculated from transactions registered before notaries and published in the DVF database. It is a municipal average, mixing the apartment in a housing complex and the recent or renovated dwelling close to transport. The floor level, the condition of the property, closeness to the metro, the tram and the future stations, as well as the energy performance certificate, explain most of the gaps. A serious valuation rests on comparable sales, not on the average alone.
The town sets side by side districts of large housing complexes, such as the cité de l'Abreuvoir or the Karl Marx and Édouard Vaillant areas, a centre around the prefecture and the place du parvis, older residential streets, and edges being reshaped near the canal de l'Ourcq and the stations. The area of the line 5 terminus, at Pablo Picasso, concentrates shops and transport. Closeness to transport and the nature of the housing set these districts clearly apart in terms of prices.
Bobigny is the terminus of metro line 5, at the Bobigny-Pablo Picasso station, which reaches the centre of Paris directly without changing. The municipality is also served by the T1 tram, which links it to Saint-Denis and Noisy-le-Sec, and serves the Avicenne hospital in particular. The planned arrival of the Grand Paris Express, with line 15, should strengthen the service further and bring the town closer to the employment centres of the metropolis.
The supply of houses is limited. The stock in Bobigny is largely made of apartments, a legacy of the post-war housing complexes, and houses are concentrated in a few older residential streets. They rarely come onto the market, which makes sale references few. The price of a house there depends heavily on its condition, its plot and its location, rather than on the municipal average, which is more representative of the apartment market.
The expected improvement in transport, with the new Grand Paris Express stations alongside line 5 and the T1 tram, strengthens interest in a town long seen as affordable. Properties close to the stations and to the areas being renovated benefit from that momentum, while the oldest and most energy-hungry dwellings remain more dependent on their condition. For a seller, the precise location relative to transport and the energy rating have become important bargaining points.
This analysis is published by Immover, an independent observatory founded by Antony Barbier. Data sourced from official sources (DVF, INSEE, Notaries of France).