Villas for sale in Cannes

Around 26,000 euros at the top of the market, against a little over 5,500 for the commune as a whole. The first figure is the midpoint recorded at the top of the market, once deals bundling several lots are set aside. The second covers every registered deed. The gap approaches a factor of five: two markets sitting over the same ground and never touching. The areas involved run from a little over 80 m² to 650 m², at a midpoint near 150 m². A prestige property in Cannes is therefore not necessarily large: it is extraordinarily well placed.

There are, but at that level of price they are the exception, and it is the most useful thing to know before starting. Where a transaction at that level covers a single dwelling, houses are counted in ones and apartments in tens. Cannes is not Saint-Tropez: the most sought-after frontage here is built in blocks. The villas are up high, at La Californie, Super Cannes, La Croix-des-Gardes. They pass on slowly, often from one family to the next, and a share of the transactions surfaces nowhere. Looking for a villa in Cannes is therefore done over time, by staying informed rather than by browsing.

Because two different things are being bought: below, walking distance; above, the plot. On the seafront, value follows first what can be reached without a car: the Palais, the beaches, the harbour. Floor level and orientation come next. Two apartments stacked in the same building are not worth the same, and the gap widens with height. On the hills, value follows the land, the seclusion and how durable the view is. That last point is the hardest to judge: an open outlook today depends on what remains buildable below, and that is looked into before an offer rather than after.

Only partly, and it is worth knowing before comparing two figures. Public records list deeds of sale. They therefore describe the ordinary market and the prestige apartment segment well, both being numerous. They account less well for properties passing on other than by a direct sale, which is common for large houses held through a company. What follows in practice is that a public midpoint understates the top of the villa market. It stays a useful bearing for placing a sector, provided it is not taken for a reference price on a property that has no equivalent.