Hyères and the Giens peninsula
Radia Amar - 04 December 2015
Lying at the foot of the Massif des Maures on the Mediterranean shore, facing the islands of Porquerolles, Port-Cros and Le Levant, Hyères is home to almost 156,000 people. Lively all year round, it is a very popular seaside resort in summer, proud of its watersports label.
Fifteen km east of Toulon, Hyères bears the traces of a chequered past, with a medieval centre rubbing shoulders with neighbourhoods whose facades are in Victorian style. Fans of sailing appreciate the 66,690-acre basin to the east of the Giens peninsula, while windsurfers and kitesurfers head for the famous beach of L’Almanarre, which hosts international competitions. A town which also has an agricultural tradition, Hyères is well-known for its cultivation of palm-trees, flowers and vines. As for culture, the Villa Noailles, a gem of rationalist architecture designed by Robert Mallet-Stevens, proposes year-round events of international status, including the Design Parade and International Fashion and Photography Festival.
Véronique Jeampy of the long-established Omnium Services Immobilier with four agencies in the Var, including one in Hyères, says that there is constant interest on the part of a French clientele, mostly retirees, in apartments suitable for year-round living, in the centre or areas west of the town. “These clients want to be in immediate proximity to shops and able to walk everywhere,” explains our expert. For this type of accommodation, their budgets are around 270,000 € for an apartment with two bedrooms, 370,000 € for three bedrooms. “The stock of available properties offers a lot of choice, though many sellers still find it hard to accept our estimates and go on hoping to obtain prices that are unrealistic, given that the market has been in decline for the past three years. The flow of transactions is thus disrupted, with properties up for sale for years without finding takers, and buyers making offers up to 30 % below the prices posted.” Not far away, the Giens peninsula is something of a world apart. Not entirely a part of the mainland, not exactly an island, this peninsula renowned for its pink flamingos is a micro-market destined for a well-off clientele. “Here, from a small pied-à-terre to a good-sized villa, prices do not follow the logic applied by the market in Hyères,” adds Véronique Jeampy. “An apartment of 35 m2 may well sell for 200,000 €, bringing appealing rental income in the summer season. A village house will cost around 650,000 €, and a well-built villa can easily exceed 1 M €. It’s a market reflecting personal fondness for the cape.” This point of view is shared by Frédéric Warton of the Canat & Warton agencies, specializing in high-end properties attracting clients with high purchasing power. “Giens is particularly highly-prized by people from Lyon looking for holiday homes,” says our specialist, whose agency in Hyères proposes a good number of top-notch villas within the Greater Hyères area, including Carqueiranne, a small seafront commune between Hyères and Le Pradet. With its parks and the little harbour of Les Salettes, Carqueiranne offers fine properties at the water’s edge priced from 1.3 to 1.5 M €. “Contemporary villas or those with charm, benefiting from good locations and swimming pools, ideally of the “infinity” kind with horizontal views of the azure sea, are the most highly sought-after. The old part of Hyères, including the Avenue Paul Long and the Paradis neighbourhood, proposes cubic houses typical of the 1950’s style. Now increasingly popular, especially among 40 year-olds, these cubic properties allow for contemporary renovation that matches today’s taste. There is a real turnaround in interest in these properties, which are priced, depending on their condition and location, from 650,000 to 800,000 €.”