At the Luxembourg border, the motto “time is money” takes on a special connotation. For cross-border commuters in northern Lorraine, the most precious time is the time you don’t waste on the crowded roads leading to work. To save one or more tens of minutes of travel, they are ready to settle as close as possible to the border, even if it means paying for a flag of 130 m2 on 6 ares at the price of a beautiful villa in Metz.
An average basket of €400,000
“As everywhere, the confinements have intensified the aspiration for an individual house. But unlike other territories, the demand around Thionville and Yutz was exerted on a border strip where the supply was already scarce and the demand very pressing. For new homes, we have gone in two years from a range of between €2,500 and €3,000 per m2 at €3,600 per m2 today. And we do not see any lull in prices, ”says Maître Raphaël Porta, notary associated with Thionville with regard to transactions in Cattenom and its surroundings.
Villages like Zoufftgen (1,200 inhabitants), Basse-Rentgen (520 inhabitants), Hagen (400 inhabitants) or Évrange (250 inhabitants) see their prices skyrocket simply because of their proximity to the border. The average price of a building area there now fluctuates between 30,000 and 35,000 €. Anxious to capture a new population, but constrained by their local urban plans, the border villages are launching where they can subdivisions of up to 50 lots, on rights-of-way rarely exceeding 6 ares. On these lands will arise houses whose price, due to the shortage of building materials, also flies away to reach at least 250,000 €. The “average basket” of a commuter who has found happiness as close as possible to the border is thus around €400,000.
invisible border
Admittedly, the purchasing power of employees of one or other of the “BigFor” (the four major global audit and financial advisory groups, all present in Luxembourg), or one of the approximately 130 banks of the Grand Duchy, allows substantial investments. For a couple of cross-border workers with a Bac+5 level employed in the Luxembourg tertiary sector, monthly incomes exceeding €10,000 are not uncommon. But they do not allow them to cross the final border which would lead them to settle directly in Luxembourg. “As soon as you cross the border, prices are multiplied by three or four. This is why Luxembourg employees and nationals who can no longer hope to become owners in their own country are also falling back on the Lorraine side of the border! underlines Master Porta.
Swiss tropism
Surprising crossovers multiply on both sides of an invisible but tangible demarcation line. Thus, a Luxembourg employee who owns an apartment of 50 m2 in Frisange, a grand-ducal commune bordering Hagen and Zoufftgen, has a good chance of selling it for €400,000. For this price, he will find a 130 m2 house a few kilometers from his home, on the Lorraine side.2 with a garden that he would not have found for less than 1.6 M € in his town of origin. Unprecedented in its scale, the phenomenon is however not unique in France. On the Franco-Swiss border, the price of real estate already exceeds 4,000 €/m2 in small towns in Ain. The northern border strip of Lorraine is now approaching these rates.
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