Hidden Market Opportunity: Why Larger Apartments Are More Affordable per Square Meter in Major French Cities

What’s most surprising here isn’t that bigger apartments cost more overall — it’s that in several major French cities, they can be dramatically cheaper per square meter than smaller ones. That flips a common real estate assumption on its head, and it shows up clearly in JobStatsen’s latest data.

Across the dataset, researchers found 59 size-based pricing anomalies in France. The biggest gaps were concentrated in Lyon, Paris, and Rouen, where the jump from a small apartment to a larger one can actually unlock a much lower €/m² price. In other words, buyers looking beyond the studio and one-bedroom segment may find some of the best value in the market.

The numbers are hard to ignore. In Lyon’s 1st arrondissement, median prices drop from €4,456/m² for smaller apartments to €634/m² for larger ones — an 85.8% discount. In Paris 2nd, the gap is €9,058/m² vs. €1,809/m² (80.0% off), and in Rouen, prices fall from €1,122/m² to €271/m².

The takeaway: in some of France’s most central urban markets, larger apartments aren’t just a lifestyle upgrade — they may also be a pricing anomaly worth paying attention to.

Read the full analysis with interactive charts and district-level data on Realty Pulse