The average price per m² in Firminy is 1 074 €/m² for an apartment, based on actual notarised (DVF) sales. For a house or villa, it is 2 042 €/m². About 104 transactions are recorded each year.
Atmospheric illustration of Firminy, in the Ondaine valley and the Saint-Étienne basin.
The average price recorded in Firminy stands at 1 074 €/m². This average covers a stock made up largely of flats, inherited from industrial growth and from the town planning of the 1950s and 1960s: blocks of the Firminy-Vert neighbourhood, slabs and towers of the reconstruction, but also older buildings of the old centre. Houses, more sought after, come out at a markedly higher level, at around 2 042 €/m². The steep relief of the valley, the condition of the property, the floor level and energy performance explain most of the gaps. Firminy remains, with Saint-Étienne and Saint-Chamond, one of the most affordable markets in the south of the Loire department. The figures come from the DVF database, the French record of notarised sales, which lists the transactions actually registered with notaries: it is a municipal benchmark, to be refined on comparable properties.
House : 2 042 €/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 Firminy market depends closely on the economy of the Saint-Étienne basin. The town long lived off the mine, the forges and the steelworks, before going through the deindustrialisation that marked the whole south of the Loire department. Demand today comes mainly from local households and from first-time buyers drawn by prices among the lowest in the region, as well as from working people employed in Saint-Étienne. This base makes the market stable but far from tight, with steady transaction volumes and contained values.
Two factors weigh on the coming years. On one side, the energy renovation of a mostly older stock is becoming decisive: energy-hungry dwellings, numerous in the buildings of the reconstruction, trade at a growing discount. On the other, the heritage revaluation carried by the Site Le Corbusier and the urban renewal schemes seek to keep and attract residents. The considerable price gap with the Lyon metropolitan area, some sixty kilometres away, sustains the interest of households in search of affordable ownership.
One of the most affordable markets in the south of the Loire department, Firminy sits in the same low range as Saint-Étienne and Saint-Chamond, far below the municipalities of the Lyon conurbation such as Saint-Genis-Laval.
Firminy grew in the Ondaine valley, south-west of Saint-Étienne, on the coal and metalworking basin of the Loire. Coal mined from the 19th century fed forges and steelworks: the Firminy steelworks earned a reputation in quality steel and settled a large working population. In a few decades the rural town became an industrial one, whose demography and housing long bore the mark of the collieries and of the steel industry.
After the Second World War, the town faced the poor condition of its older buildings. Elected mayor in 1953, Eugène Claudius-Petit, a former minister of Reconstruction and Town Planning, launched the Firminy-Vert scheme: a new neighbourhood conceived along the principles of modern town planning, with widely spaced blocks, light and large green spaces, breaking with the dense working-class town. The works, begun at the end of the 1950s, made Firminy a testing ground for the architectural ideas of its time.
Claudius-Petit entrusted several buildings to Le Corbusier, whom he had known for a long time. The Maison de la Culture, completed in 1965, the stadium and a Unité d'habitation rose from the ground, while the église Saint-Pierre, designed in the early 1960s, was only built from 2003 and inaugurated on 29 November 2006, the only Le Corbusier building erected in the 21st century. Together they form the largest concentration of the architect's works in Europe. The Maison de la Culture has been listed since 2016 as UNESCO World Heritage, within the series devoted to the work of Le Corbusier.
According to INSEE, the French statistics institute, Firminy has around 17 060 inhabitants. The stock is overwhelmingly made up of apartments, between the large estates of the reconstruction, the Firminy-Vert neighbourhood and the older buildings of the centre; houses, rarer, are concentrated on the hillsides and in the housing estates. Main residences dominate, with a significant share of social housing and a level of vacancy that is far from negligible on the oldest stock. Buyers are first of all households of the Saint-Étienne basin: first-time buyers drawn by low prices, working people employed in the valley or in Saint-Étienne, families looking for an affordable house less than half an hour from the metropolitan area.
The average price recorded is 1 074 €/m², calculated from the transactions registered with notaries and published in the DVF database. It is a municipal average, which brings together very different situations: a dwelling in a large estate of the 1960s, a renovated apartment in the centre and a property in Firminy-Vert do not belong to the same segment. Condition, floor level, aspect in a steep-sided valley and the energy performance assessment weigh heavily on the price. For a reliable figure, it is better to rely on comparable sales than on the average alone.
The two markets coexist, but in unequal proportions. Flats are very largely in the majority, which explains an abundant supply of apartments at contained prices. Houses, more sought after, come out at a higher level, at around 2 042 €/m² on average, and are concentrated on the hillsides and in the housing estates. Their relative scarcity lengthens search times and reduces the number of sale references available to value a property precisely.
Firminy brings together the largest concentration of works by Le Corbusier in Europe: the Maison de la Culture, the stadium, a Unité d'habitation and the église Saint-Pierre. The Maison de la Culture has been listed as UNESCO World Heritage since 2016. This architectural heritage draws visitors and supports the image of the town, but it weighs little on property prices, which are governed first of all by the local economy and by the closeness of Saint-Étienne.
Firminy lies about eight kilometres from Saint-Étienne, in the Ondaine valley. The municipality is linked to the metropolitan area by road and by the transport network of Saint-Étienne Métropole, with a short journey time towards the employment centres, the secondary schools and services. This accessibility sustains demand from households who work in Saint-Étienne while looking for cheaper housing in the valley.
The mining and industrial past of the valley calls for looking into the former extraction sites and the risk prevention plan of the municipality before a purchase. The steep relief influences the aspect and the access of many properties. Finally, on an older stock often built before thermal standards, the energy performance assessment has become a central negotiating criterion: a poorly rated dwelling sells with more difficulty and means anticipating works.
This analysis is published by Immover, an independent observatory founded by Antony Barbier. Data sourced from official sources (DVF, INSEE, Notaries of France).