The average price per m² in Granville is 3 843 €/m² for an apartment, based on actual notarised (DVF) sales. About 183 transactions are recorded each year.
Mood illustration of Granville, a port and seaside resort on the west coast of the Cotentin.
In Granville, the average price stands at 3 843 €/m². That average covers a contrasted stock: according to INSEE, the French national statistics institute, 60,5 % of dwellings are apartments, from the seafront studio to the blocks built after the war. The granite houses of the Haute-Ville, enclosed within its ramparts, and the properties looking straight over the bay trade above the average, while the sectors set back from the coast, towards the station and the heights, remain more affordable. This figure comes from the DVF database, which records sales actually registered before notaries, and not from asking prices.
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.
Granville is not a resort that empties out of season. With 12 510 inhabitants and 70 % main residences according to INSEE, the town works as the hub of a catchment area that reaches well beyond its municipal limits, with its hospital, its secondary schools and its shops. Maritime activity remains a real driver: the harbour ranks among the leading shellfish ports in France, scallop and whelk fishing set the rhythm of the year, and the Hérel marina supports a boating industry. That employment base sustains demand for main residences all year, including away from the seafront.
The second driver is tourism. The carnival, one of the oldest in France, inscribed in November 2016 on the representative list of the intangible cultural heritage of humanity of UNESCO, mobilises the town during the five days that precede Shrove Tuesday. To this are added the musée Christian-Dior housed in the villa Les Rhumbs, the departures for the îles Chausey, some fifteen kilometres offshore, and the casino by the beach. Those visitor numbers support the value of properties close to the coast. Against them, supply renews itself slowly: the cap Lihou is entirely built up and the Coastal Act limits urban extension.
Granville sits below the ports of the nearby côte d'Émeraude, but markedly above the neighbouring large Normandy towns. It is an intermediate level, carried by the coast without reaching that of the most sought-after Breton resorts.
The rock of Granville, the cap Lihou, was fortified only fairly late. In 1439, during the Hundred Years War, the English captain Thomas de Scales had a stronghold built there to cut off the Mont-Saint-Michel: five hundred metres of walls, a citadel and a church close the peninsula. The French took the position back as early as 1442. The medieval enclosure was demolished in 1689, then raised again between 1727 and 1749: it is that layout that is walked today, listed as a historic monument by an order of 26 October 2004. The Haute-Ville, a granite quarter set above the sea, keeps from that military origin its narrow streets and its density.
From the 1450s onwards, Granville lived off the sea. Cod fishing on the Newfoundland banks fitted out dozens of ships, and privateering gave the French navy several officers, among them Georges-René Pléville Le Pelley. In November 1793, the town withstood the siege laid by the Vendean army and pushed it back. The 19th century changed the register: the fashion for sea bathing arrived in 1827, a first wooden casino opened in 1860, the regatta society was founded in 1889 and the racecourse in 1890. Above all, the line from Paris reached Granville on 3 July 1870, which grafted a seaside resort onto the fishing port.
Christian Dior was born in Granville in January 1905, in the villa Les Rhumbs bought by his parents and set on the cliff; the family left for Paris six years later, the municipality bought the property back in the 1930s and the musée Christian-Dior opened there in 1997. The war left its marks: bombing in 1944, then a German raid launched from Jersey during the night of 8 to 9 March 1945, which sank several cargo ships in the harbour. In 1962, Granville absorbed the municipality of Saint-Nicolas-près-Granville, which explains the present extent of the municipal territory and the juxtaposition of quarters with very different fabrics.
Granville has 12 510 inhabitants. According to INSEE, the municipality counts a little more than 10 100 dwellings, of which 70 % are main residences, 24,7 % second or occasional homes and 5,3 % vacant dwellings: this is a town that lives year-round, not a resort that closes out of season. The stock is mainly collective, with 60,5 % apartments against 39,3 % houses. Among main residences, 46,7 % of households are owners and 52,1 % tenants. Buyers divide between families from the local employment area, retired people moving in facing the sea, and Paris-region or Normandy buyers looking for a pied-à-terre close to the harbour.
The average price recorded in Granville is 3 843 €/m². It is an average calculated on sales actually registered before notaries and published in the DVF database, not on prices displayed in agency windows. The same property may depart from it widely depending on the view over the bay, the storey, the overall condition and the distance to the seafront. Our online valuation refines that average from the characteristics of your home.
The Haute-Ville, enclosed in its ramparts on the cap Lihou, and the surroundings of the Plat Gousset, the town-centre beach, concentrate the strongest demand, with granite houses and apartments looking over the bay. The harbour quarter and the Hérel marina attract buyers who want a boat a few minutes away. Saint-Nicolas and the sectors on the heights, further back, offer larger floor areas at lower price levels.
Granville is the terminus of the line opened on 3 July 1870 from Paris-Montparnasse, operated today by the Nomad trains of the Région Normandie. The journey takes about three hours, with several return services a day, which places the town among the coastal destinations reachable without a car. The harbour also runs regular sailings to the îles Chausey and the Channel Islands. Caen is a little more than a hundred kilometres away by road.
Part of the built fabric falls under special rules. The enclosure of the Haute-Ville has been listed as a historic monument since the order of 26 October 2004, and the Grande Porte has been classified since 1931: works visible within their perimeter go through the opinion of the architect of the Bâtiments de France. On the rest of the coast, the Coastal Act frames the urbanisation of the areas close to the shore. Before buying with works in mind, ask for a planning certificate at the town hall.
According to INSEE, 60,5 % of dwellings in Granville are apartments and 39,3 % houses: both markets really exist, which is not the case in every coastal municipality of the Manche. Apartments are concentrated in the centre, on the seafront and in the postwar blocks. Houses, often in granite, are spread between the Haute-Ville, Saint-Nicolas and the more recent detached-housing sectors, with sale times that are generally longer.
This analysis is published by Immover, an independent observatory founded by Antony Barbier. Data sourced from official sources (DVF, INSEE, Notaries of France).