Villefranche-de-Rouergue housing market baby boomer inheritance, Digi Mart USA News (Aveyron, Occitanie, France): According to a ranking published by Le Figaro, Villefranche-de-Rouergue in the Aveyron department is the French city where the “demographic shock” is expected to cause the largest drop in real estate prices.
The newspaper says the influx of properties resulting from the inheritance of the baby boomer generation over the next 15 years will durably unbalance the housing market. The phenomenon is not yet visible.
Baby boomers were born between 1946 and 1964 and are now between 62 and 80 years old.
According to the article, “theoretically, we are therefore at the dawn of this phenomenon, which should last throughout the 2030s, until the early 2040s.” The town is located in what is described as the “diagonale du vide,” a low-density triangle whose base lies in the Pyrenees and whose tip reaches the Ardennes.
Villefranche-de-Rouergue has a little over 11,000 inhabitants. It is a rural area with an aging population, where 32.9% of residents are over 65.
The share of vacant housing already exceeds 20%.
Le Figaro also notes that the typology of properties makes a difference. Very often, the cost of renovation far exceeds the value of the land, making such an inheritance a financial loss.
The ranking of the most threatened cities includes: 1. Villefranche-de-Rouergue (Aveyron), 2.
Issoudun (Indre), 3. Vierzon (Cher), 4.
Douarnenez (Finistère), 5. Yzeure (Allier), 6.
Thiers (Puy-de-Dôme), 7. Thouars (Deux-Sèvres), 8.
Millau (Aveyron), 9. Creutzwald (Moselle), 10.
Lourdes (Hautes-Pyrénées).
The study considered cities of more than 10,000 inhabitants in metropolitan France, 988 cities in total. It compared three indicators of population aging and three indicators of real estate market dynamism, using data from the INSEE 2023 census.
Other cities in the region also appear in the ranking. Saint-Estève (Pyrénées-Orientales) is 13th, Moissac (Tarn-et-Garonne) is 17th, and Mauguio (Hérault) is 23rd.
