The average price per m² in Villard-de-Lans is 3 686 €/m² for an apartment, based on actual notarised (DVF) sales. For a house or villa, it is 4 842 €/m². About 163 transactions are recorded each year.
Atmospheric illustration of Villard-de-Lans, on the Vercors plateau in Isère.
The average price recorded in Villard-de-Lans stands at 3 686 €/m². This average covers a stock dominated by holiday housing: 79.1 % apartments according to INSEE (France's national statistics institute), many of them studios and one-bedroom flats built between the 1960s and 1980s around the centre and towards the Côte 2000. Alongside these survives an older fabric of farms and chalets in the plateau hamlets, rarer and more expensive: the average price recorded on houses and villas comes out at 4 842 €/m². Altitude, proximity to the lifts and energy condition 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.
House : 4 842 €/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 rests on a dual role: mountain resort and residential hinterland of Grenoble. Less than an hour from the urban area, the municipality captures holiday demand and main-residence demand that compete for the same stock, which supports prices while the population holds at around 4 300 inhabitants. With 64.4 % second homes according to INSEE, most transactions concern dwellings that will not be occupied year-round. The linked Villard-Corrençon ski area, the cross-country skiing of Bois Barbu and summer visitors to the plateau spread activity across the four seasons.
New supply remains limited. The regional nature park and the rules applying in mountain areas contain urban sprawl, and available land in the town is scarce: activity shifts towards renovating the tourist developments built between 1960 and 1980, whose energy performance now weighs in negotiations. Uncertainty over snow cover at mid-altitude also pushes the resort to invest in summer activities and cross-country skiing, which conditions the value of the homes most dependent on alpine skiing. The local economy also rests on healthcare, education and farming, with the Bleu du Vercors-Sassenage cheese, granted AOP status in 1998, which helped save the villarde breed.
A mountain resort less than an hour from Grenoble, Villard-de-Lans sits well above the municipalities of the Grenoble urban area listed here, including the city itself. The gap comes from the scarcity of land on the plateau and the weight of holiday housing.
The name appears in the records in 1080, in the form Sancti Boniti di Vilar juxta Lanz, and a papal bull confirmed the church within the diocese of Grenoble in 1145. In 1338, a charter granted the town a monopoly on the market for the Quatre Montagnes country, which fixed its role as the plateau's main town for centuries. Its economy remained agricultural and pastoral, turned towards dairy farming and timber. Farmers selected a local cattle breed, the villarde, suited to limestone pastures and long used as a draught animal too. Isolated by the relief, the plateau was linked to the Isère valley by a proper road only from 1827, towards Sassenage.
Opening up changed things at the turn of the 20th century. Villard-de-Lans was among the first municipalities in France to be electrified, in 1888, and was recognised as a winter sports resort as early as 1906. The tramway from Grenoble was inaugurated on 26 June 1920 and ran until 1951: it brought spa visitors and then the first skiers. Climate therapy followed, with the opening of a first establishment for children in 1922, under the aegis of the Paris institute of hygiene, of which the municipality became the sole owner in 1926. Holiday camps, children's homes and sanatoriums left part of the collective building stock still visible today.
During the Second World War, the plateau became a stronghold of the Vercors resistance. The municipality housed a Polish secondary school and networks that hid Jewish children. In July 1944, during the German crackdown, the hamlet of Valchevrière was burned down: it was never rebuilt and today serves as a place of remembrance. The post-war years relaunched tourism, with a first cable car towards the Côte 2000 in 1951, then the Grenoble Olympic Games in February 1968, whose luge events were held on a natural track of 1 000 metres and fourteen bends laid out in the Frier wood. The holiday developments of the 1960s to 1980s shape the built ring seen today.
According to INSEE, Villard-de-Lans has 4 328 inhabitants for 6 564 dwellings, of which only 2 226 are main residences, or 33.9 % of the stock: second homes and occasional dwellings account for 64.4 %. Apartments make up 79.1 % of dwellings, houses 20.3 %. Among households in main residences, 64.6 % are owner-occupiers and 31.9 % tenants. Two groups of buyers therefore meet over the same stock. On one side, holiday buyers, often from Grenoble or Lyon, looking for an apartment less than an hour from the city. On the other, year-round households, working in tourism, healthcare, education and public services, more often looking for a house or a large apartment.
The average price recorded is 3 686 €/m², calculated from transactions registered with notaries and published in the DVF database. It is a municipal average, mixing the small resort apartment and the hamlet house. The average price recorded on houses and villas reaches 4 842 €/m². Position within the town, access to the lifts, aspect and the year of construction explain most of the gaps. A serious valuation is set against comparable sales, not against the average.
The municipality stretches from the town, at around 1 050 metres, up to the Côte 2000 area, the historic gateway to the alpine ski area linked to Corrençon-en-Vercors. The centre concentrates the shops, the schools and year-round services, with a fabric mixing older houses and resort buildings. The plateau hamlets, such as Bois Barbu or Les Geymonds, offer more scattered housing, turned towards cross-country skiing and mountain pastures. These three housing logics do not sell at the same level.
The plateau is linked to Grenoble by the Sassenage road and the Bourne gorges, or via Lans-en-Vercors and the Croix-Perrin pass, for some thirty kilometres and a journey of under an hour outside winter conditions. Regional coaches serve the plateau all year. Since the tramway stopped in 1951, no rail service reaches the municipality: the car remains central, which gives value to parking and to a garage.
Supply is unbalanced. According to INSEE, houses account for only 20.3 % of dwellings against 79.1 % apartments. They are concentrated in the hamlets and on the slopes, often as old farms or 1970s chalets, with very variable floor areas and plots. Sale references are few and the price gap per square metre with apartments is clear, which makes valuing a house more dependent on its condition and its view than on the municipal average.
The municipality falls under the loi Montagne (France's mountain-planning law) and lies within the Vercors regional nature park, created in 1970, which governs development, extensions and the appearance of buildings. Natural hazards are recorded across the territory, notably landslides on certain slopes. On the use side, letting a furnished tourist property requires a declaration at the town hall, and the taxation applying to second homes is worth anticipating before purchase.
This analysis is published by Immover, an independent observatory founded by Antony Barbier. Data sourced from official sources (DVF, INSEE, Notaries of France).