The average price per m² in Saint-Gervais-les-Bains is 5 336 €/m² for an apartment, based on actual notarised (DVF) sales. For a house or villa, it is 8 730 €/m². About 181 transactions are recorded each year.
Atmospheric illustration of Saint-Gervais-les-Bains, at the foot of the Mont Blanc massif in Haute-Savoie.
The average price recorded in Saint-Gervais-les-Bains stands at 5 336 €/m², while the house and chalet segment comes out at 8 730 €/m². This average covers a territory of 87 km² stretching from the Le Fayet district, at around 580 metres, up to the summit of Mont Blanc at 4 806 metres. The stock is about 64 % apartments according to INSEE (France's national statistics institute), spread between the buildings of Le Fayet, the spa town, the developments of Le Bettex and the chalets of Saint-Nicolas-de-Véroce. A valley studio and a hillside chalet facing the massif do not belong to the same market. The figures come from the DVF database (the French record of notarised property sales), which lists the transactions actually registered with notaries.
House : 8 730 €/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 local market depends more on visitor numbers than on demographics. With 5 755 permanent inhabitants and nearly 6 300 second homes according to INSEE, the municipality counts more than one holiday dwelling per inhabitant. Its membership of the Évasion Mont-Blanc area, which links Saint-Gervais, Saint-Nicolas-de-Véroce, Megève, Les Contamines-Hauteluce and the Portes du Mont-Blanc, widens the clientele well beyond the Mont Blanc country. The municipality also plays on two registers that few resorts combine: skiing from Le Bettex, and the spa treatments of Le Fayet, whose establishment receives patients for dermatology and respiratory conditions for much of the year.
New supply remains constrained. Across 87 km², the genuinely buildable share is reduced by the relief, by the hazard zonings inherited from 1892 and by the rules of the loi Montagne, which shifts activity towards renovation of the existing stock, in particular the developments of the 1960s to 1990s at Le Fayet and Le Bettex. Summer tourism also counts: the normal route up Mont Blanc starts from the Nid d'Aigle, terminus of the Mont Blanc Tramway, and attracts visitor numbers that the municipality manages. Against that, housing for seasonal and year-round workers remains a recurring issue in the valley.
A municipality with a dual vocation, thermal on the valley floor and touristic at altitude, Saint-Gervais-les-Bains sits below the Chablais resorts such as Les Gets, at a level close to that of the Annecy urban area, and well above a border town such as Annemasse.
The municipality is mentioned as early as the Middle Ages in the Faucigny: a lordship formed around the château de la Comtesse in 1355, a fortified house was raised in 1373 by the Count of Savoy and an autumn fair was instituted in 1371. The turning point was thermal. In 1806, the notary Gontard had the waters rising at the bottom of the Bonnant gorges analysed, bought the land, dug a gallery above the springs and opened a small bath house in 1807. Visitors followed: around 600 bathers were recorded as early as 1824. Savoie became French after the plebiscite of April 1860, and the municipality officially took the name Saint-Gervais-les-Bains on 7 April 1867.
On 12 July 1892, a pocket of water lodged under the Tête Rousse glacier gave way and released around 100 000 cubic metres of water. The debris flow that swept down the Bionnassay and Bon Nant valleys carried away the Pont du Diable and almost entirely destroyed the Le Fayet spa establishment in the middle of the season. The toll exceeded 175 victims, which makes it one of the deadliest glacial disasters in the French Alps. The episode lastingly marked local planning and monitoring of the massif: a new pocket of 65 000 cubic metres was detected on 13 July 2010 in the same glacier, then pumped out, and further cavities were drained in 2019.
Reconstruction relied on the railway and on altitude. Le Fayet station was brought into service on 15 June 1898, at the terminus of the line from La Roche-sur-Foron. The Mont Blanc Tramway project was approved in 1904, the first section up to the Voza pass opened in 1909 and the rack railway reached the edge of the Bionnassay glacier in 1913; its terminus at the Nid d'Aigle, at 2 372 metres, remains the highest railway point in France. Skiing took over with the Bettex cable car in 1936, extended towards the Mont d'Arbois in 1937. The neighbouring municipality of Saint-Nicolas-de-Véroce was merged into it in 1973.
According to INSEE, Saint-Gervais-les-Bains has 5 755 inhabitants for 9 228 dwellings, of which 30.9 % are main residences, 67.8 % second or occasional homes and only 1.3 % vacant. Apartments account for around 64 % of the stock and 63.7 % of households own their main residence. Buyers fall into two distinct groups. On one side, non-residents from Geneva, Lyon, Paris or Northern Europe, who target the developments of Le Bettex and the chalets of Saint-Nicolas-de-Véroce. On the other, permanent working residents, employed by the lift company, the spa, hotels and the services of the Arve valley, who tend to look in the older stock of Le Fayet and the town centre.
The average price recorded is 5 336 €/m², calculated from sales registered by notaries and published in the DVF database. It is a municipal average, bringing together very different properties: apartments in Le Fayet, homes in the spa town, high-altitude developments at Le Bettex and chalets in Saint-Nicolas-de-Véroce. The house and chalet segment comes out well above, at 8 730 €/m². Altitude, the view and access to the slopes explain most of the gaps.
Le Fayet occupies the valley floor, around the station and the spa park, at a little under 600 metres: it is the most urban area and the densest in apartments. The town of Saint-Gervais, at around 800 metres, gathers the shops, the church and the gondola departure. Le Bettex, at around 1 450 metres, and Saint-Nicolas-de-Véroce, merged in 1973, belong to a holiday market, with chalets and developments facing the massif.
Both markets exist, but not in the same proportions. According to INSEE, apartments account for around 64 % of the municipality's 9 228 dwellings, against nearly 35 % houses. The supply of chalets is concentrated on the slopes, in Saint-Nicolas-de-Véroce, at Le Bettex and in the hillside hamlets, which limits the number of comparable references. The price gap is clear: 5 336 €/m² as a general average, against 8 730 €/m² in the house and chalet segment.
The municipality has a station, opened in 1898 at Le Fayet, at 581 metres. It is served by line L3 of the Léman Express towards Annemasse and Geneva, by regional trains and by seasonal high-speed services from Paris. It is also the departure point of the Mont-Blanc Express towards Chamonix, Vallorcine and Martigny, and of the Mont Blanc Tramway. This rail service, rare for a mountain municipality, supports demand from car-free buyers and from foreign clients.
The municipality falls under the loi Montagne (France's mountain-planning law), which governs the extension of built-up areas and makes building land scarce. It is covered by natural-hazard prevention plans for torrential floods, avalanches and landslides, a direct legacy of the 1892 disaster: these zonings should be consulted before any purchase. The Arve valley is also subject to an air-protection plan that governs wood heating. Letting a furnished tourist property requires a declaration at the town hall.
This analysis is published by Immover, an independent observatory founded by Antony Barbier. Data sourced from official sources (DVF, INSEE, Notaries of France).