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by sofixa 2003 days ago
Housing is expensive in the city and some nearby suburbs ( mostly to the west and southwest), but less so the further away you are. Thanks to the RER train system even far away suburbs, with cheap or cheapish housing aren't that far away - e.g. i have colleagues with houses ( with big yards and two stories) in the 200k euros range south of Paris, in fancy-ish suburbs, and are 40-50 minutes from the office ( i live in a suburb right next to the city and i travel entirely by subway, and it takes me 50 minutes, because the subway is much slower).

Depending on what you want though, it can indeed be very expensive - e.g. if you want an apartment in the city to profit from the night life ( after 1am the transport to the suburbs is only with buses and much slower), it is going to be very expensive to buy.

And that's just for "regular" people. Each city in France is required to have a minimum percentage of social housing, to which you can have access ( including to buy) if you're below a certain threshold of income ( so on minimum wage, you're there).

1 comments

Thanks for the input. Can you please tell me which are those suburbs with 200k homes outside of Paris? I'd definitely move there at that price, sounds like a steal.

Though I'm a bit skeptical as 200k is enough for a house in Eastern Europe on the outskirts of Bucharest, but in Austria where I am now and average house outside of Vienna is way over 600K so the Paris suburbs you describe seem suspiciously cheap to me at only 200k since Paris is more expensive than Vienna.

What's the catch?

Here is a 230k EUR house just 1h20m outside Paris: https://www.green-acres.fr/en/properties/13050a-340936848565...
Auxerre is one such city. I have a coworker who has bought a few apartments there because it’s where he’s from and eventually plans to return to.
But it is 2h30m outside Paris, does it really still count as a suburb?