Buying an apartment in 2026 is no longer the same operation as it was two years ago. Prices do not follow the same trend depending on the type of property, sales volumes are picking up while prices stagnate, and credit rates have stabilized without significantly decreasing. Understanding these discrepancies is what allows for making a decision suited to the current market.
Old apartments and houses: two diverging markets
You may have noticed that the prices of old houses and those of old apartments are no longer moving in the same direction? This is the clearest trend in the real estate market at the beginning of the year.
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Old apartments continue to lose value, with a decline of about 1.4% year-on-year at the beginning of 2026 according to notary data. Old houses, on the other hand, have seen several consecutive quarters of moderate increases.
This phenomenon can be explained by several factors. Buyers of houses are often first-time family buyers willing to move away from city centers. Partial remote work, now established in many sectors, makes this option viable. For apartments, competition with rentals and energy constraints (DPE, co-ownership work) are holding back buyers.
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The analyses published as real estate news on RapidActu detail these discrepancies city by city, which helps to situate a project in its local context.
In practical terms, if you are selling an old apartment, you need to factor this downward pressure into your asking price. For a house, the room for negotiation is narrower than it was a year ago.
Transaction volume rising despite still hesitant prices
This is the most interesting signal to decode. Notaries report a rise of about 11% in transaction volume in the old market year-on-year as of February 2026. Buyers are returning, signing, but prices are not following (yet).
Why this discrepancy? The mechanism is classic in a real estate market emerging from a crisis:
- Buyers are taking advantage of negotiable prices and a large stock of properties to finalize purchases that have been postponed for two or three years
- Sellers, on the other hand, are slowly adjusting their expectations, which keeps prices slightly declining or stabilizing
- The volume catch-up always precedes the price catch-up, sometimes by several quarters
For a buyer, this phase is a window where the balance of power remains favorable. The market is reactivating through transactions before readjusting in value. Waiting for prices to rise before buying often means paying more for an equivalent property.
Mortgage rates: stabilization around 3.8% and buying strategies
After the shock of 2023-2024 when rates rose sharply, the situation has settled. The Crédit Logement Observatory reports a stabilization of rates around 3.8% over 20 years.
This level remains high compared to the period from 2015 to 2021. But it changes the nature of the calculation for borrowers. The idea is no longer to wait for a return to very low rates, which is unlikely to happen in the short term.
Buy now and renegotiate later
Simulators and brokers are now documenting a concrete strategy: buy at the current price, then renegotiate your loan if rates drop in the following years. In practice, a decrease of a few tenths of a point on a 20-year loan can represent several thousand euros in savings.
This approach assumes two conditions. First, that the property purchased meets a real need (primary residence, rental investment that is profitable from the start). Second, that the borrower checks the renegotiation or loan buyout conditions in their contract before signing.
Real estate situation in France: what the overall figures do not show
National averages mask very different local realities. Some cities are already showing rising prices, while others continue to decline.
Geographical disparities are widening
Attractive metropolitan areas (employment, transport, universities) are once again attracting solvent buyers. Medium-sized cities where the job market is more fragile remain under pressure. This analysis by city, neighborhood, and type of property is the only one that allows for informed decision-making.
- Look at the quarterly price evolution in your municipality, not the national average
- Compare the average selling time: a property that sells in less than three months indicates a tight local market
- Check the stock of available properties, as a decreasing stock often signals a price increase
Notary data, published quarterly, remains the most reliable source for tracking this local situation.
The production of new housing remains low
The number of new housing units under construction remains persistently low. This slowdown in construction weighs on the overall supply and mechanically supports prices in tight areas. For a buyer, this means that the stock of available properties will not increase quickly, especially in large urban areas.
The real estate market of 2026 rewards those who read local signals rather than national headlines. The divergence between apartments and houses, the gap between volumes and prices, the stabilization of rates: these three trends create a landscape where each buying or selling decision benefits from being finely calibrated, property by property, city by city.