The average price per m² in Pontoise is 3 143 €/m² for an apartment, based on actual notarised (DVF) sales. About 218 transactions are recorded each year.
Mood illustration of Pontoise, in the Val-d'Oise.
In Pontoise, the average price for apartments stands at 3 143 €/m², according to the DVF data, that is the transactions actually registered before notaries. That average covers a contrasted stock: older blocks in the upper town, subject to strict rules on building work, small blocks of flats in the centre around the Grand-Martroy, large estates of the 1960s and 1970s at the Louvrais, the Cordeliers and Marcouville. The gaps come above all from the period of construction, from the condition of the block and from the distance to the station. Houses, a minority, are spread over the slopes and towards the Hermitage.
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 population of Pontoise is rising slowly, by about 0,6 % a year between 2017 and 2023 according to INSEE, to reach 31 970 inhabitants. The market is fed by a steady flow of resales rather than by massive deliveries of new housing: about 218 transactions a year, a modest volume that makes prices sensitive to the quality of each property. The share of vacant dwellings, 8,9 % of the stock, reflects the age of part of the town-centre building fabric and the weight of the renovations to be carried out on the oldest blocks.
The second driver is the administrative and hospital function. Pontoise remains the seat of the Val-d'Oise, hosts a sub-prefecture, the judicial court and the René-Dubos hospital, the main health facility of the area. Those public-sector jobs keep up continuous rental demand, in studios and one-bedroom flats above all. The municipality also belongs to the Cergy-Pontoise conurbation, whose campuses and business zones widen the employment base. The Ville d'art et d'histoire label, obtained in 2006, and the Impressionist legacy support a flow of visitors that remains secondary for the housing market.
Pontoise sits in the lower part of this group of municipalities of the north-west of the Paris region. Its price level remains close to that of Cergy, its immediate neighbour, behind L'Isle-Adam and clearly below Saint-Germain-en-Laye.
The name of Pontoise brings together the Latin pontem, the bridge, and Isara, the Celtic name of the Oise: the town was born of a crossing, at the meeting of the Oise and the Viosne, before drawing back around the ninth century onto the defensive mound of the mont Bélien. In the eleventh century the Benedictine abbey of Saint-Martin was raised, and the royal castle rebuilt between 1103 and 1122. Philip Augustus granted the town a communal charter in 1188, in the midst of the Vexin war: the inhabitants elected a mayor and twelve peers, and in exchange funded the fortifications. Saint Louis stayed there regularly.
The census of 1332 counts about 8 000 to 10 000 inhabitants: Pontoise was then one of the main towns of the kingdom and the capital of the French Vexin. The Hundred Years War broke that rise. Occupied by the English from 1417, the town was not retaken until 1441, after a three-month siege. The conquest of Normandy then moved the border northwards and stripped it of its strategic role. Recovery came from the railway: the Paris to Dieppe line reached Pontoise in 1863 and reopened the town towards the capital, even if industry settled above all on the other bank.
Camille Pissarro stayed in Pontoise from 1866 to 1868, then from 1872 to 1884, and drew other painters there: the town became one of the homes of Impressionism, a memory kept alive by the museum opened on 22 November 1980. After 1945, rebuilding came before rapid change. Pontoise became the administrative seat of the Val-d'Oise, a department created in 1964 and effective on 1 January 1968, while the prefecture building was put up in the neighbouring municipality of Cergy and opened in 1970, a unique case in France. The plateaus of the Louvrais, the Cordeliers and Marcouville were covered with large estates between 1960 and 1971. The Ville d'art et d'histoire label was obtained in 2006.
Pontoise has 31 970 inhabitants and 15 680 dwellings, of which 88,9 % are main residences, 2,2 % second or occasional homes and 8,9 % vacant, according to INSEE, the French national statistics institute. The stock is 75,0 % apartments against 20,3 % houses: the market is first of all one of flats. Again according to INSEE, 58,2 % of households rent their main residence and 36,1 % own it. Buyers are therefore mainly first-time buyers and families looking for a municipality well served by train, at a price level below that of the neighbouring Yvelines, as well as investors targeting small floor areas.
The average price for apartments in Pontoise stands at 3 143 €/m², calculated on the DVF transactions actually completed before notaries, for a volume of the order of 218 sales a year. That municipal average covers wide gaps between the older upper town, the recent blocks of flats and the large estates of the plateaus. A given property can therefore sit appreciably above or below that benchmark.
They are two separate municipalities, divided by the Oise. Pontoise is the historic seat of the Val-d'Oise, with a medieval centre and a stock largely predating the war. Cergy, born of the new town decided on in 1965, offers housing built almost entirely after 1970. The two markets are close in price level but not comparable in the nature of the property: an apartment in Pontoise compares first of all with other properties of the upper town or of the plateaus.
The upper town, around the cathedral of Saint-Maclou, the Grand-Martroy and the town garden, pulls prices upwards: older buildings, shops within walking distance and a nearby station. The low-rise slopes and the Hermitage sector, on the Oise side, also support values. Conversely, the large estates of the Louvrais, the Cordeliers and Marcouville, built in the 1960s and 1970s, sit in the lower part of the municipal market.
Pontoise station, opened in 1863, is served by Transilien line H towards Paris-Nord, by line J towards Paris-Saint-Lazare and by RER line C towards Paris-Austerlitz since September 2000. The municipality is also crossed by the A15 motorway, which joins the northern loop of the Île-de-France. That combination of three rail lines counts on resale, above all for properties less than ten minutes' walk from the station.
Yes, in the centre. Part of the old town falls under a remarkable heritage site designation, which governs façades, joinery, roofs and signs. Work visible from public space requires an authorisation there and the opinion of the state architect for historic buildings. Timescales lengthen and renovations cost more, but the protected setting also makes the value of the sector. Enquire at the town hall before starting a project.
This analysis is published by Immover, an independent observatory founded by Antony Barbier. Data sourced from official sources (DVF, INSEE, Notaries of France).