The average price per m² in Romainville is 5 270 €/m² for an apartment, based on actual notarised (DVF) sales. About 196 transactions are recorded each year.
Mood illustration of the plateau of Romainville.
The average price recorded in Romainville stands at 5 270 €/m². That average covers a stock where four dwellings in five are in blocks of flats: postwar buildings, the large estates of Gagarine and Marcel-Cachin, and a recent wave of new-build schemes delivered on the plateau and around the place Carnot. Internal gaps are marked. The streets of low-rise detached housing in the Bas-Pays and the developments close to the new metro station sit above the condominiums of the 1960s and 1970s, whose building condition weighs on values. This figure comes from the DVF data, that is the transactions actually registered before notaries.
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 first driver of the market is the arrival of the metro. The extension of Line 11 to Rosny-Bois-Perrier, brought into service on 13 June 2024, gave Romainville a station of its own after decades of waiting and removed the compulsory change at Les Lilas or Noisy-le-Sec. With 37 152 inhabitants and a density close to 10 800 inhabitants per square kilometre, the town concentrates continuous rental demand and attracts households priced out of Paris and of the neighbouring municipalities. The extension of the tramway T1 from Bobigny towards Val de Fontenay, still under construction, should strengthen that service in the coming years.
The second driver is the transformation of the built stock and of the former industrial sites. The urban renewal begun in 2016 on the Gagarine district is gradually replacing part of the social housing stock with new dwellings, for purchase as well as for rent, and creates a price segment distinct from the older blocks. The pharmaceutical brownfields follow the same path: the Roussel-Uclaf laboratories have hosted since October 2019 the Komunuma cluster and the Fondation Fiminco, with galleries and an artists' residence. Lastly, the development of the leisure park of the Corniche des Forts, on the former quarries, brings a large green space to a very dense municipality.
Romainville sits behind Montreuil and Pantin, its immediate neighbours, served by the metro for far longer. The gap runs the other way with Rosny-sous-Bois, which is further from Paris.
The name Romainville derives from Romanavilla, a form attested in the 13th century, which designated the estate of Romain. The site was occupied from the Neolithic and the municipality appears in the texts as early as the 7th century, through the will of Ermentrude. In the Middle Ages, the hillside was covered with vines, part of them belonging to the priory of Saint-Jean-de-Latran, and wine was a major resource for the inhabitants from the 12th century. In 1630, the nobleman Nicolas de Quélen had a country house built there, which passed to the Ségur family in 1723 and was demolished in 2017. In 1867, the creation of the municipality of Les Lilas took about a third of the territory of Romainville.
Between 1870 and 1900, the intensive working of gypsum and clay transformed the plateau. The underground quarries dug beneath the town fed the plaster works of the area and left a subsoil pierced with galleries, where the inhabitants took shelter during the Second World War. The park of the country house became a vast quarry itself, before being bought back by the municipality in 1988 and then by the Région, the regional authority. Chemical industry settled alongside: around 1909, Doctor Gaston Roussel launched in Romainville a pharmaceutical production that became Roussel-Uclaf and employed close to two thousand people as early as 1928. The fort of Romainville, built in the 19th century on what is today the territory of Les Lilas, served as a German internment camp from 1940 to 1944: around seven thousand detainees passed through it, including women deported to Auschwitz in January 1943.
The postwar years drew the town as it stands today. Attached to the department of the Seine until the law of 10 July 1964, Romainville joined the Seine-Saint-Denis on 1 January 1968. In the 1960s, the social housing office built the Youri-Gagarine estate, whose 769 dwellings were inaugurated in October 1969, while the Bas-Pays, set below the quarries, filled up in turn. Since 2016, Gagarine has been the subject of an urban renewal programme, and the town has four priority neighbourhoods: Gagarine, Marcel-Cachin, l'Horloge and Trois Communes-Fabien. In October 2019, the former Roussel-Uclaf laboratories reopened under the name Komunuma, with the Fondation Fiminco, four contemporary art galleries and an artists' residence.
Romainville has 37 152 inhabitants. According to INSEE, the French national statistics institute, the municipality counts 15 532 dwellings, of which 94,7 % are main residences and 0,7 % second homes: this is the market of a town lived in year-round, with no holiday dimension. Apartments account for 80,5 % of the stock and houses for 18,2 %, a reserve of low-rise detached housing better supplied than in many neighbouring municipalities of the inner suburbs of Paris. Again according to INSEE, tenants make up 57,5 % of households and owners 41,1 %, the social housing stock accommodating 32,9 % of main residences. Buyers are mainly households coming from Paris and first-time buyers from the east of the Paris region, more numerous since the arrival of the metro.
The average price recorded in Romainville is 5 270 €/m². It is an average calculated on the sales registered in the DVF database, which records the transactions actually completed before notaries. It blends studios, family apartments in the estates of the 1960s and recently delivered new homes. Your property may depart from it depending on the district, the storey, the general condition, the distance to the metro station and the presence of a parking space.
The best valued sectors are the old centre around the place Carnot, now served by the metro, the streets of low-rise detached housing running down towards the Bas-Pays, and the new-build schemes bordering the leisure park of the Corniche des Forts. The condominiums that came out of the large estates, at Gagarine, at Marcel-Cachin or in the Horloge district, remain more affordable, with service charges and a building condition to be examined closely before signing.
Since 13 June 2024, metro Line 11 has served the municipality directly. The Romainville - Carnot station, straddling Noisy-le-Sec, opens 26 metres beneath the place Carnot and puts Châtelet around twenty minutes away without a change. The Serge Gainsbourg station, in Les Lilas, completes the service of the west of the territory. The extension of the tramway T1 from Bobigny towards Val de Fontenay, still under construction, provides in time for an interchange at Carnot.
Yes, and it is a local particularity not to be overlooked. The subsoil of the municipality is dug with former gypsum quarries and covered by a ground movement risk perimeter. Any sale or letting must come with the prefectoral order giving notice of the risk linked to the former quarries and to the shrinking and swelling of clay soils. Before buying, ask for the statement of risks and check the exact situation of the plot with the Inspection générale des carrières.
Blocks of flats largely dominate the volumes traded, between older condominiums, large estates and new-build schemes. According to INSEE, 80,5 % of dwellings are apartments and 18,2 % houses. The reserve of low-rise detached housing is concentrated in the Bas-Pays and on the narrow streets of the plateau. These properties are few on the market, go quickly and most often trade above the municipal average. A patient search is to be expected on that segment.
This analysis is published by Immover, an independent observatory founded by Antony Barbier. Data sourced from official sources (DVF, INSEE, Notaries of France).