The average price per m² in Tignes is 9 862 €/m² for an apartment, based on actual notarised (DVF) sales. About 154 transactions are recorded each year.
Atmospheric illustration of Tignes, a Haute-Tarentaise resort at the foot of the Grande Motte, in Savoie.
The average price recorded in Tignes stands at 9 862 €/m². This average covers a stock made up almost entirely of apartments: according to INSEE (France's national statistics institute), 95.3 % of the municipality's dwellings are apartments, mostly studios and small units built in the resort developments of Tignes-le-Lac, Le Lavachet and Val Claret. Houses and chalets are rare, less than 5 % of the stock, and change hands seldom: the average level recorded in this small segment comes out at 19 768 €/m², nearly double, which reflects the value of exceptional detached buildings at altitude rather than an everyday market. Aspect, access to the slopes, the altitude of the area and the condition of the home widen the gaps. The figures come from the DVF database (the French record of notarised property sales), which lists the transactions actually registered with 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 Tignes market is that of a large international resort, not of an ordinary mountain town. Demand comes from second-home buyers, French and foreign, drawn by an area linked to Val d'Isère, one of the largest in the Alps, and by the snow reliability that the Grande Motte glacier brings. Building land is scarce at altitude and most transactions concern existing apartments, which supports prices despite a shrinking permanent population. With more than 84 % second homes, the municipality lives from a stock that is not occupied year-round.
New supply is constrained by the relief, the loi Montagne and the wish to preserve the landscape: activity shifts towards renovating the developments built during the resort's decades of growth, whose energy performance weighs more and more in negotiations. Over the longer term, the question of snow cover at high altitude and the evolution of the glacier steer investment towards summer skiing, elite sport and a four-season offer, which conditions the value of the homes most dependent on alpine skiing alone. The scarcity of detached properties and the renown of the ski area sustain an upmarket market, sensitive to the luxury cycle and to foreign buyers.
A high-end high-altitude resort linked to Val d'Isère, Tignes sits at the very top of the Savoie market, neck and neck with Chamonix and well above the valley town of Bourg-Saint-Maurice as well as the large resort of Les Belleville.
Tignes owes its present appearance to an episode that marked the post-war years. To produce electricity, the state decided in the 1940s to build a large hydroelectric dam in the upper Isère valley. The Chevril dam works drowned the original village, whose inhabitants were evacuated by force in 1952, sometimes with police intervention. Furniture, archives and even the graves of the cemetery were moved higher up. Inaugurated in 1953 by President Vincent Auriol, the 180-metre structure was then among the tallest dams in Europe and holds back the waters of the Chevril lake, still visible from the road.
Deprived of its main village, the municipality rebuilt higher up and bet on skiing. From the mid-1950s, with state support, Tignes developed as a winter sports resort at around 2 100 metres of altitude, at the foot of the Grande Motte glacier, which peaks at 3 656 metres and remains skiable for part of the summer. The resort sectors are tiered between Les Brévières, Les Boisses, Tignes-le-Lac, Le Lavachet and Val Claret, the highest. Linked to Val d'Isère, the municipality forms the ski area long called the Espace Killy, in tribute to the triple Olympic champion Jean-Claude Killy, today marketed under the name Tignes - Val d'Isère.
The resort has made Tignes an atypical municipality: fewer than two thousand year-round inhabitants for nearly 6 800 dwellings, a capacity of several tens of thousands of tourist beds, and an economy almost entirely turned towards mountain tourism, in winter as in summer. The glacier allows summer skiing and training for elite teams, while the municipality develops a summer offer, hiking, mountain biking and white-water sports, to spread visitor numbers across the year. This single-activity economy explains a young population, largely made up of seasonal workers, many of them in rented housing.
According to INSEE, Tignes has around 1 919 inhabitants for nearly 6 800 dwellings, of which only 14.4 % are main residences: second homes and occasional dwellings account for 84.5 %. The stock is 95.3 % apartments and 4.7 % houses. Unusually, among households living here year-round, 61.6 % are tenants and only 38.4 % owner-occupiers, a sign of a working population that is largely seasonal and housed by tourism employers. Buyers, for their part, are mostly second-home purchasers, French or foreign, looking for a ski-in ski-out base, far more than owner-occupiers living here year-round.
The average price recorded is 9 862 €/m², calculated from transactions registered with notaries and published in the DVF database. It is a municipal average, dominated by resort apartments. It covers very different situations depending on the sector, altitude, aspect and direct access to the slopes. The small segment of houses and chalets, rare and atypical, trades at a far higher level. For a specific property, a reliable valuation rests on recent comparable sales in the same sector, not on the municipal average.
Tignes is spread across several tiered resort sectors. Val Claret is the highest, at around 2 100 metres, closest to the Grande Motte glacier. Tignes-le-Lac and Le Lavachet form the lively heart of the resort, beside the lake. Lower down, Les Boisses, renamed Tignes 1800, and Les Brévières offer a more village-like atmosphere and generally more measured prices. Altitude, snow cover and immediate proximity to the lifts explain a good share of the price gaps between these sectors.
The nearest station is Bourg-Saint-Maurice, the terminus of the Tarentaise line, some thirty kilometres downstream, from where shuttles climb to the resort. By car, Tignes is reached by the upper Tarentaise road, which runs along the Chevril lake. Access remains a mountain road, subject to winter conditions, which gives value to parking and covered parking spaces, in an area where parking is difficult in high season.
The stock is built for holidays: more than 95 % apartments, many studios and one-bedroom flats designed to accommodate skiers and families for a week. A detached house or chalet remains an exception in Tignes, with very few sales each year and markedly higher prices. A buyer therefore most often targets a second-home apartment, whose value depends mainly on the sector, aspect, access to the slopes and the condition of the development, rather than on the municipal average.
Tignes falls under the loi Montagne (France's mountain-planning law), which governs planning and the appearance of buildings at altitude, and the municipality is exposed to natural hazards specific to the high mountains, avalanches and landslides in particular. Letting a furnished tourist property requires a declaration at the town hall. The taxation of second homes, very much in the majority here, is worth anticipating before purchase, in particular the residence tax on second homes that the municipality is entitled to apply.
This analysis is published by Immover, an independent observatory founded by Antony Barbier. Data sourced from official sources (DVF, INSEE, Notaries of France).