The two Alpes-Maritimes: Côte d’Azur prime versus the mountain hinterland (2026 DVF data)

Alpes-Maritimes (department 06) is the most expensive department in the South of France in 2025, with a median house €/m² of €5,491. It’s also the department where the median is least useful for decision-making. The 10th-percentile commune sells at €2,720; the 90th sells at €10,978; and individual communes range from €945 in Le Mas to €34,444 in Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat. The Côte d’Azur and the arrière-pays niçois are two different markets sharing one prefecture.

This post is the buyer’s-side read on what the 2025 DVF data shows about the spread, and how to use it.

The headline numbers

The 2025 picture in Alpes-Maritimes, computed from DVF transactions:

Median €/m² (houses): €5,491
2024 median: €5,381 (+2.0% YoY)
10th to 90th percentile range: €2,720 to €10,978
House transactions in 2025: 4,036
Apartment transactions in 2025: 21,360

Volume rose 12.8% from 2024 to 2025 (2,981 house transactions in 2024, 3,362 in 2025). The recovery is real, though slightly slower than the south-of-France average.

The five-year price arc shows the same shape as the rest of the south: 2023 peak (€5,425), 2024 dip (€5,381), 2025 stabilization with a modest rebound. The 4-year cumulative gain is +11.8%, the highest in the six South-of-France departments, reflecting the international demand floor under the prime coastal communes.

The 36x spread is the actual story

Across the south, the within-department spread is what matters more than the headline median. In Alpes-Maritimes, that’s truer than anywhere.

Alpes-Maritimes communes: most expensive vs cheapest by median €/m², 2025 (DVF)

The most expensive five are all coastal. The cheapest five are all in the arrière-pays, in the Mercantour foothills or the Roya valley, between 50 and 90 minutes inland from the coast. The factor between Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat and Le Mas is 36.

This is unique to Alpes-Maritimes within the south. No other department in the region has a within-department factor above 25; most are around 10 to 15. The presence of the Cap-Ferrat / Èze / Beaulieu strip drives the top, and the Mercantour drives the bottom, and there’s almost nothing structurally connecting the two markets.

What’s normal: the high-volume communes

The 90th percentile and the highest-recorded commune are dramatic, but they’re thin slivers of the actual transaction flow. The high-volume communes, where buyers actually shop, sit closer to the median:

High-volume Alpes-Maritimes communes, 2025 (DVF)

For a buyer who wants the Côte d’Azur experience without the Cap-Ferrat number, the working zone is roughly Mougins / Vence / Cagnes / Cannes / Nice in the €5,500 to €7,000 range, plus Grasse and Peymeinade as inland-prime options at €4,500 to €4,700. That’s where the comp pool is deep enough to value reliably and the transactions actually happen.

Where the Mercantour starts to matter

A practical test: roughly an hour inland from the coast, prices step down hard. Lantosque (€1,949), Utelle (€1,795), Saint-Martin-Vésubie (€2,230), Roquestéron (€2,094), Pierrefeu (€2,083). These villages are physically beautiful, often architecturally significant, and structurally isolated from the Riviera economy. Some are worth a serious look for a buyer who wants Provence-style prices with mountain access; some are de facto evacuated, with a small year-round population and most houses on the market for years.

The DVF data alone won’t tell you which is which. A cheap median can mean “undervalued and primed for recovery” or “no buyers and no schools and no doctors.” Local context matters more in this segment than anywhere else in the South of France.

The Cap-Ferrat tail

Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat at €34,444/m² is the highest median in the dataset. Fifteen transactions in 2025. Beaulieu-sur-Mer at €17,879/m² had five. Èze at €14,362/m² had thirty-five. These are not statistical anomalies; they’re the global ultra-prime market, where the buyer profile is international, the transaction often involves trusts or holding companies, and the comparable-sales analysis is more about brand than data.

If you’re shopping in this band, the DVF medians are still useful as a reality check on whatever number an agent is quoting you, but the dispersion within Cap-Ferrat alone is enormous: a renovated Belle Époque villa with sea view will not transact at the same number as a 1970s flat needing rework, even on the same peninsula.

What this means if you’re buying

The “Côte d’Azur” answer your American or British friends give you is not actually one market. Cannes, Antibes, Nice, Mougins, Cagnes, and Vence are six different sub-markets with €1,000-2,000/m² spreads between them at similar volumes. Use the specific commune as your reference point; the regional median is misleading.

Inland is genuinely cheaper, and the gap has held for a decade. Lantosque to Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat is 60 minutes by road and a factor of 18 in price. If your priority is Provence sun and stone-village character without the Riviera price, the arrière-pays delivers, with the trade-offs of distance and amenities.

Volume is up 12.8%, the slowest among the six south departments. The Riviera buyer base is the slowest to return because international travel costs and confidence move slowly. The implication: pace of price appreciation here will track international conditions more than French domestic ones. Watch the strength of the dollar and pound versus the euro.

The asking-vs-sale gap is also tighter on the coast than inland: Côte d’Azur prime is back at 3 to 5% off asking; the arrière-pays still tolerates 8 to 12% on properties needing work. The negotiation guide /guides/negotiate-french-property walks through how to set the right opening number for each.

Try it on your listing

If you’re evaluating a specific Alpes-Maritimes property, the median is a context anchor and almost nothing else. The Adresse.ai estimate filters comparable sales to your specific commune, surface band, and condition, then applies regional adjustments and an English-language verdict.

Run an estimate →

See also:

Sources: DVF dataset on data.gouv.fr, Notaires de France market reports, Connexion France: Alpes-Maritimes property coverage. DVF aggregation by Adresse.ai (scripts/analyze-dvf.py).