As more and more French people are tired of teleworking in small surfaces deprived of green spaces, you want to leave work and housing to enjoy a better living environment elsewhere? In order to enlighten future buyers on the large cities which offer both a dynamic employment pool and an affordable price per square meter, the employment specialist Meteojob and the broker Meilleurtaux have combined their data collected in 2021 in order to ” establish a ranking of the French cities most compatible with a change of life.
Because unsurprisingly, the aspirations of the French have evolved since the beginning of the health crisis: no more big cities, place for medium-sized cities which reconcile a pleasant environment, recruitment prospects and real estate opportunities. As Maël Bernier, communication director and spokesperson for Meilleurtaux, has analyzed, this new dynamic associated with the context of persistently low interest rates is keeping the number of real estate transactions on the rise. “As such, medium-sized towns are particularly attractive for these French people who lack space; they have everything to gain: living comfort and additional square meters, for a budget that can be divided by 5 for the same area! ”, she explains.
But once the urge to move has set in, you still have to know where to go. If some cities offer good prospects for recruiting on permanent contracts and others accommodation at prices that are particularly accessible for their surface area, the study reveals that some have these two advantages. In order to achieve this ranking, Meilleurtaux and Meteojob took into account at the same time the salary, employment and housing of the various cities in 2021. These data made it possible to measure the number of open-ended employment offers in relation to the number inhabitants, but also the real estate purchasing power, established from the price of real estate, the median salary and the interest rates applied in each city.
The top 3 cities with the most opportunities
It is in Mulhouse, Orleans and Dijon that new buyers have the best chance of getting a job while owning a home that meets their expectations. Its dynamic employment pool and its attractive real estate purchasing power propel Mulhouse to the top of the podium. There are 6.29% of CDI offers per 100 inhabitants, the latter being able to afford on average a housing of 83 square meters*.
Particularly attractive, the city of Orleans comes in second position. It offers both its proximity to the capital and a price per square meter which remains affordable, i.e. 2,601 euros. Although it comes in second position in the overall ranking, Orléans is the city with the most job offers compared to its population: 7.22% of permanent contracts per 100 inhabitants. “The metropolis is extremely attractive and more and more buyers from Paris and Ile-de-France have moved there since the start of the Covid”, suggests Marko Vujasinovic, president of CleverConnect at Meteojob.
Third of the most attractive cities, Dijon has seen its employment rate climb in one year. With 6.47% of permanent contracts per 100 inhabitants, employment opportunities have multiplied by 12 compared to 2020! Offers which, for the happiness of its inhabitants, were not accompanied by an excessively strong increase in property prices. The accessible surface was 57 square meters in 2021, for a price per square meter of 2,670 euros.
The least attractive cities
Conversely, the French wanting a change of scenery have little interest in moving to Marseille, Montpellier or Nice. These large cities benefit neither from a good employment rate, nor from an attractive real estate purchasing power. The prize for the least attractive city after Paris is awarded to Nice: newcomers will find an employment rate of 2.47% there, for accessible surfaces not exceeding 36 square meters … Marseille, beyond the framework of pleasant life that it offers, offers for its part only 2.48% of CDI per 100 inhabitants and accessible surfaces of 50 square meters on average.
Disparities between housing and employment within cities
Note that the concordance between dynamic employment basin and real estate opportunities is not systematic in the different cities of France. Bordeaux, for example, enjoys an employment rate of 7.16%, notably at the origin of the growing number of Parisians who settle there. This rate is all the more interesting as it has climbed in one year: in 2020, it did not exceed 1%. But while newcomers are unlikely to have great difficulty in finding a job, acquiring good accommodation is another kettle of fish. According to the Meilleurtaux and Meteojob study, new buyers in Bordeaux can benefit from only 30 square meters on average, for one square meter that has exceeded 5,000 euros.
The same phenomenon is observed in Lyon and Aix-en-Provence. These large cities have an employment rate of 5.28% and 5.38% respectively, but the average accessible surface area of their housing remains around 30 square meters. “These very large cities have always attracted thanks to a very dynamic economic fabric and job market. But obviously in return, the demand is very strong in terms of housing, which leads to scarcity and reduction of space. ” explain Marko Vujasinovic and Maël Bernier.
Conversely, some cities offer new buyers very interesting real estate opportunities but do not have a particularly attractive professional pool. This is the case for a number of cities in the south of France, such as Perpignan, Toulon, or even Nîmes. If Perpignan arrives at the first place of the cities where the French can afford the largest housing, with accessible surfaces of 111 square meters on average, the shoe pin on the employment side: there are only 2.30 % of open-ended employment offers per 100 inhabitants.
* Methodology: to calculate the real estate purchasing power, i.e. the number of m2 that can be purchased with a 20-year loan with the proposed net income, the median salaries offered in the job offers listed by Meteojob have been compared with the interest rates listed by Meilleurtaux and the price of local real estate.
>> Our service – Are you moving? Quickly get quotes from our selection of movers
–
Receive our latest news
Each week your meeting with real estate news.
