The average price per m² in Bourg-lès-Valence is 2 041 €/m² for an apartment, based on actual notarised (DVF) sales. For a house or villa, it is 2 705 €/m². About 200 transactions are recorded each year.
Atmospheric illustration of Bourg-lès-Valence, north of Valence.
The average price of apartments in Bourg-lès-Valence stands at 2 041 €/m², based on DVF data, the French notarised sales database, which records transactions actually registered with notaries. This average covers a housing stock split almost evenly between houses and apartments: small blocks of flats from the 1960s and 1970s, more recent developments towards Le Valentin, older houses in the streets of the Vieux-Bourg, detached homes in Chony, Les Chirouzes and Les Chanalets. The house segment trades at a higher level, at around 2 705 €/m². The gaps stem above all from location, distance from the main roads, the condition of the property and its year of construction.
House : 2 705 €/m²
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 Bourg-lès-Valence market is one of volume rather than of pressure, with around 200 apartment sales recorded each year in the DVF data, including 206 over the latest reference year, for a municipality of 19 992 inhabitants. Demand comes first from the Valence conurbation: households looking for more floor area than in Valence for an equivalent budget, with quick access to the town centre. The share of owner-occupiers, close to 61 % according to INSEE, reflects a stable main-residence market, where transactions follow life paths rather than speculative cycles.
Several drivers support local activity. The municipality belongs to the Valence Romans employment area, on the Rhône corridor linking Lyon to Provence, with direct access to the A7 and to the Valence TGV station via the Citéa network. Public facilities have grown, from the Lycée des Trois Sources opened in 1992 to the Valentin estate, and soft mobility is progressing: the ViaRhôna cycle route runs along the river, and a footbridge of 123 metres was opened on 11 April 2024, replacing the former blue footbridge dismantled in March 2022.
Bourg-lès-Valence sits just below its immediate neighbour Valence, while staying above Montélimar and Romans-sur-Isère. The gaps between these four municipalities of the Rhône valley remain moderate.
Bourg-lès-Valence took shape on the left bank of the Rhône, below the Roman colony of Valentia, as a river-port and trading suburb. The collegiate church of Saint-Pierre du Vieux-Bourg, regarded as the first episcopal see of the Valence area, forms its core: its canons held the lordship over the town and, in the 12th century, collected dues on watering rights. The building was destroyed in 1567, during the Wars of Religion, then restored in the 19th and 20th centuries. Control of the river long secured the activity of the port. After the Valentinois was finally attached to the Dauphiné, in the middle of the 15th century, the town saw commercial growth, and manufacturing works were set up along the canals from the 16th century onwards.
In the 17th century, Bishop Jean de Cosnac had the Château du Valentin built, today at the centre of a wooded estate of about 65 hectares. The municipality appointed its first mayor in 1790, the former priest Marbos, and saw its territory reduced in 1850 by the creation of Saint-Marcel-lès-Valence. Industry arrived in 1855: the industrialist Noël Sanial bought twelve hectares in the Chony area and built there a large brick textile mill, intended for silk and cotton, which employed up to 900 workers. The crisis in silkworm farming, the break in cotton supplies and two fires, in 1858 and 1862, led him to bankruptcy in 1866.
In 1874, the State bought the buildings back to install a national cartridge factory there, linked by a branch line to the Valence to Grenoble railway. The workforce rose from 450 to 3 000 people during the First World War, most of them women. Activity declined after 1945 and the site was abandoned in the 1980s, before being protected as a historic monument. The town quadrupled its population in a century and spread towards the north-east. The A7 motorway, declared to be in the public interest by a decree of 17 October 1957, was completed in 1967 then widened to two carriageways of three lanes in 1986. The Rhône diversion canal, with its dam and its hydroelectric plant, was built from 1965 to 1968.
Bourg-lès-Valence has 19 992 inhabitants and ranks fourth among the municipalities of the Drôme. According to INSEE, the French statistics institute, the municipality counts 10 187 dwellings, of which 92,6 % are main residences, 1,1 % second homes and 6,3 % vacant dwellings: the profile of a residential town lived in year-round, with no holiday market. Still according to INSEE, the stock is split between 47,6 % houses and 51,7 % apartments, and 60,8 % of main residences are occupied by their owners, against 37,2 % tenants. Buyers are therefore mostly families and working households from the Valence conurbation, often first-time buyers, looking for a house or a large apartment a few minutes from the centre of Valence.
The average price of apartments in Bourg-lès-Valence is 2 041 €/m², based on DVF transactions actually completed before notaries. Houses sit higher, at around 2 705 €/m². These averages cover noticeable gaps depending on the area, the year of construction, the presence of outdoor space or parking, exposure to traffic noise from the main roads and the general condition of the property.
The Vieux-Bourg appeals for its old streets lined with 17th-century houses and its immediate closeness to Valence. The Valentin area, backing onto the wooded estate and the château, offers a greener setting and recent developments. Chony, Les Chirouzes, Les Chanalets and Girodet form family neighbourhoods of detached houses. The immediate surroundings of the A7 and of the former route nationale 7 remain the most affordable areas.
The municipality borders Valence: its centre is a few minutes away, and Valence-Ville station serves Lyon and Marseille. Valence TGV station, in Alixan, is linked by the Citéa bus network, whose InterCitéa line connects the three stations of the conurbation and the main business areas. The A7 has a direct access point, and the Valence ring road has been in service since 5 December 2002.
Both markets genuinely coexist here: according to INSEE, the stock counts 47,6 % houses and 51,7 % apartments, which is unusual for a municipality of this size. Blocks of flats are concentrated along the main roads and around the centre, houses in the residential neighbourhoods of the north and the east. A house trades at about a third more per square metre than an apartment, a gap to be set against service charges and land.
The municipality is bordered by the Rhône and crossed by several canals, including the Barberolle: the low-lying areas fall under a flood-risk prevention plan which governs building work and extensions. The former cartridge factory in the Chony area is protected as a historic monument, which imposes specific rules within its perimeter. These points can be checked with the planning department of the town hall before any works project.
This analysis is published by Immover, an independent observatory founded by Antony Barbier. Data sourced from official sources (DVF, INSEE, Notaries of France).