The average price per m² in Saint-Valery-en-Caux is 2 733 €/m² for an apartment, based on actual notarised (DVF) sales. About 28 transactions are recorded each year.
Ambience illustration of Saint-Valery-en-Caux, on the Côte d'Albâtre, in the Seine-Maritime.
The average price of apartments in Saint-Valery-en-Caux stands at 2 733 €/m², according to the DVF database, which records the sales actually registered before notaries. That average covers a contrasting stock: post-war reconstruction blocks around the harbour and the centre, more recent developments on the seafront, brick town houses and small blocks on the heights, towards the falaise d'Amont and the falaise d'Aval. The view over the basin or over the sea, the storey, the condition of the property and closeness to the beach make values vary appreciably. The market remains narrow, with around thirty sales recorded each year.
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 Saint-Valery-en-Caux market remains narrow, with of the order of thirty sales recorded each year in the DVF data. That low turnover owes to the size of the municipality and to the high share of second homes, which change hands less regularly than dwellings lived in all year. New supply is limited: the urban fabric, hemmed in between the harbour, the cliffs and the farming plateau of the Pays de Caux, leaves little land available, and operations concentrate on renewing the existing stock rather than on extensions.
Several factors support demand. The coast and the marina attract second-home buyers from Rouen and the Île-de-France, drawn by the sea view and by closeness to the beach. Local employment rests on fishing, tourism, services and on the Paluel nuclear power station, some ten kilometres away, which provides a living for many working people in the area. Conversely, the distance from the main railway stations and the closure of the rail line weigh on accessibility, which contains prices compared with better-served resorts.
Saint-Valery-en-Caux sits slightly above its neighbours, whether the market town of Yvetot, inland, or the harbours of the Côte d'Albâtre such as Dieppe and Le Tréport, whose averages remain a little behind.
Saint-Valery-en-Caux owes its name to Valery, an evangelising monk of the 7th century who is said to have founded a hermitage on this site in the Pays de Caux. The place appears in the texts in 990 in the form Sanctum Walaricum, when Richard I, duke of Normandy, attached it to the abbey of Fécamp. From the 13th to 17th century, the town lived from fishing, herring in particular, and its harbour was among the most active on the Caux coast. The rise of neighbouring Fécamp eventually eclipsed it, and the silting up of the channel long held back maritime activity before the clearing works undertaken under the Ancien Régime.
The built heritage still carries the trace of that merchant prosperity. The church of Saint-Valery was raised in the 15th century, while the Maison Henri IV, on the quay, was built in 1540 for Guillaume Ladiré, a shipowner of the town. That timber-framed house, whose front carved with Renaissance motifs evokes sea voyages, owes its nickname to a king of France received by the town's notables in the middle of the 16th century. It houses a museum of local history today. These old buildings, rare survivors of the centre, recall the role of trading and shipping port that the town held for several centuries.
The 20th century left a lasting mark on the municipality. On 12 June 1940, the 51st Highland Infantry Division, commanded by general Victor Fortune, and encircled French units surrendered there to Rommel's troops, at the end of one of the last engagements of the campaign in France. The centre was destroyed to around 60 % by the bombing and the successive demolitions. Liberated in September 1944 by that same Scottish division, re-formed, the town was rebuilt after the war on a regular plan. The harbour, long devoted to fishing, turned to pleasure boating: its two basins, one of them a wet dock closed by a gate, take several hundred boats today.
Saint-Valery-en-Caux has 3 851 inhabitants. According to INSEE, the French national statistics institute, the municipality counts around 2 970 dwellings, of which close to 24 % are second homes: numbers swell markedly in the warm season, carried by the coast and by pleasure boating. Again according to INSEE, apartments make up a little less than half the stock, the rest being houses, and around 40 % of main residences are occupied by their owners. Buyers mix local households, people working in Fécamp, Dieppe or around the Paluel power station, retired people settled year-round and second-home buyers coming from Rouen and the Paris region.
The average price of apartments in Saint-Valery-en-Caux is 2 733 €/m², according to the DVF transactions actually completed before notaries. That average hides appreciable gaps depending on the view over the sea or the basin, the storey, the presence of outdoor space, the condition of the dwelling and its distance from the beach. A recent seafront apartment and a dwelling in the back streets do not trade at the same level.
The seafront, between the beach and the two cliffs, concentrates the strongest demand, with the properties offering a direct view over the Channel. The surroundings of the marina and the rebuilt centre, close to the shops and the market, remain sought after by year-round buyers. The residential streets of the heights and the brick town houses offer larger floor areas, often at a more measured level.
The railway line that served the town closed in the 1990s: journeys today are made mainly by car and by coach. Dieppe and its station are around thirty minutes to the east, Fécamp to the west, and Rouen, the prefecture town of the department, lies some sixty kilometres to the south. The departmental roads serve the municipalities of the Pays de Caux and the shoreline of the Côte d'Albâtre.
With close to a quarter of second homes, the question arises for many buyers. Tourist municipalities may vote an increase in the council tax on second homes, and letting a furnished tourist rental is subject to registration rules. These arrangements change from one year to the next and depend on municipal decisions: their exact terms are to be checked with the town hall of Saint-Valery-en-Caux before any purchase plan.
The stock is fairly balanced: according to INSEE, houses make up a little more than half of dwellings and apartments a little less than half. The reference price of 2 733 €/m² applies to apartments, the most liquid segment around the harbour and the centre. Town houses and the low-rise homes of the heights offer more floor area and a garden, but come onto the market less often in a municipality of modest size.
This analysis is published by Immover, an independent observatory founded by Antony Barbier. Data sourced from official sources (DVF, INSEE, Notaries of France).