Where to buy in Provence: Aix, Marseille and Cassis, Bandol, Avignon, the Luberon and the Alpilles

Which part of Provence should you buy in?

Buying in Provence means choosing between sea and countryside, and between year-round life and a seasonal home. The départements give a first benchmark for houses: a median of €4,100/m² in the Bouches-du-Rhône, €4,200/m² in the Var and €2,900/m² in the Vaucluse. Yet in Aix-en-Provence the median reaches €6,000/m², and from one village to the next, the view, the land and the distance to the sea open gaps that only a sale-by-sale reading explains.

• The Aix countryside: private mansions, bastides and the villages of the Sainte-Victoire, for year-round living.
• Marseille and the calanques: France’s great port city facing the sea, then Cassis and La Ciotat.
• The Var coast: Saint-Cyr-sur-Mer, Bandol and Sanary-sur-Mer, harbour towns backed by vineyards.
• Avignon: private mansions behind the ramparts, and the gateway to the Luberon.
• The Luberon: Gordes, Lourmarin and the hilltop villages, a long-standing international market.
• The Alpilles: Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, Eygalières and Maussane, the heartland of the mas.

The Aix countryside: where to buy a bastide or a family home?

Aix-en-Provence brings together the most sought-after property in Provence: the private mansions of the Mazarin quarter, apartments in the old town, and bastides, the country houses of the old Provençal gentry, in the surrounding countryside. Apartments sell at a median of €4,900/m² and houses at €6,000/m², with eight house sales in ten between €3,900/m² and €10,300/m²: a secluded bastide and a house on a modern estate are different markets. The finest sales close before any listing; for a house or a bastide in Aix-en-Provence, preparation matters more than speed.

The villages around Aix

To the north, Puyricard, a village within the municipality of Aix, is surrounded by a countryside of châteaux and bastides (€6,000/m² for houses); to the west, Éguilles looks over the valleys from its promontory (€5,700/m²). To the east, Le Tholonet, Saint-Marc-Jaumegarde and Vauvenargues border the Sainte-Victoire, Cézanne’s mountain: sales there are rare and often private. The Arc valley, from Fuveau (€4,600/m²) to Trets (€4,200/m²), offers more measured prices.

• Old town and Mazarin quarter: a protected heritage area, where façades, windows and roofs need the approval of the Architecte des Bâtiments de France, the state heritage architect.
• Bastides: the grounds are worth their water, a declared borehole, a basin or the Canal de Provence; ask for the titles and the easements.
• Sainte-Victoire: a listed massif with mandatory brush clearance; check that an extension or a pool is allowed before paying for the view.
• Who it suits: families settling year-round and buyers preparing a future main home.

Marseille, Cassis, La Ciotat: where to buy by the sea?

In Marseille, prestige sits on a narrow coastal strip: Roucas-Blanc, Endoume and Malmousque in the 7th arrondissement, the Corniche Kennedy, then Périer, the Prado and the Carré d’Or in the 8th, down to Pointe Rouge. Houses sell at a median of €4,600/m², with one sale in ten above €8,900/m², and apartments at around €3,200/m². Two neighbouring addresses can belong to different worlds: the view, the overlooking, the mistral and the state of the building set the price.

Cassis, sheltered by Cap Canaille, is one of the most closed markets on the coast: apartments sell at a median of €7,000/m², houses change hands too rarely for a reliable median, and the villas that matter, bought to be kept and handed down, often sell without a listing. La Ciotat, whose former shipyards are now a yacht refit hub, lives all year at more measured prices: €5,900/m² for houses, €5,200/m² for apartments.

Bandol, Sanary or Saint-Cyr: which harbour on the Var coast?

Between La Ciotat and Toulon, three harbour towns share a coast of coves and vineyards. Saint-Cyr-sur-Mer combines the family beach of Les Lecques, the little port of La Madrague and hills of the Bandol wine appellation (€6,500/m² for houses). Bandol has a lively marina and south-facing hills where sea-view villas are rare: €6,800/m² for houses, €6,300/m² for apartments. Sanary-sur-Mer lives all year around its market: village houses in the centre, villas at Portissol and on the heights, with a median of €6,200/m² and a top decile of €11,700/m² for houses.

• Seafront: salt air wears façades and waterproofing; read the minutes of the building’s general meetings and its maintenance log.
• View: check what the local plan allows on the plots below, because a view is only worth what its future is worth.
• Hills: part of the land is agricultural or within the appellation, where an extension, a pool or a plot division may be impossible.
• Who it suits: Sanary for year-round life, Bandol and Saint-Cyr first and foremost for a second home.

The A50 motorway and the Marseille to Toulon regional trains serve all three towns. Beyond Toulon come Hyères and Porquerolles, where we also search to order, and then the French Riviera, the Côte d’Azur.

Avignon and the Vaucluse: what lies behind the ramparts?

Behind its ramparts, Avignon hides one of the finest collections of private mansions in the South of France, from the Banasterie to rue Joseph-Vernet, in a historic centre listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It is the most affordable town in this guide: a median of €2,500/m² for houses and €2,300/m² for apartments, with a top decile for houses of €3,600/m²; across the Vaucluse, the median house price is €2,900/m².

The city is also the gateway to the Luberon and the Alpilles, 2 h 40 from Paris by TGV. Across the Rhône, Villeneuve-lès-Avignon, in the Gard, offers houses with gardens; to the east, L’Isle-sur-la-Sorgue draws lovers of character houses. For a house in the Vaucluse, the first choice is between town and country.

• Within the walls, almost everything lies in the protected heritage area: windows, roofs, façades, down to the colour of the shutters.
• A mansion is judged from the top: roof timbers, Roman tiles, génoise eaves, walls prone to rising damp.
• The Île de la Barthelasse and some riverbanks lie in the Rhône flood zone: the risk prevention plan governs extensions and insurance.
• The July festival transforms the city: visit out of season too, to judge the real noise and parking.

The Luberon: where to buy between Gordes and Lourmarin?

A mountain range and a regional nature park created in 1977, the Luberon has hilltop villages on both its slopes. On the north side, Gordes overlooks the valley from its rocky spur, crowned by a Renaissance château; dry-stone huts called bories dot its slopes, and the Abbey of Sénanque watches over its valley. It is one of the most closed markets in the Vaucluse, where the departmental median, €2,900/m², says nothing about prices: 42 sales in all over the 12 months to end of June 2026, village houses or mas in the hamlets, rarely advertised.

On the south side, Lourmarin lives to the rhythm of its Friday market, among AOC Luberon vineyards and olive trees, below its Renaissance château. With 23 sales over the same period, each house is judged on its own. Bonnieux, Ménerbes and Lacoste complete the map, and we search there to order too.

• You buy a restoration as much as a house: come with an architect, and have the terraces and dry-stone walls read by a mason.
• Check the view and its future: a neighbour’s planting or restoration can close it.
• Around a mas, vines, olive trees and orchards change the rules: the status of the land, agricultural leases, farming zones.
• Near listed monuments, exterior works need the heritage architect’s approval: allow for the time it takes.

The market has been international for a generation, with Americans, Belgians and the Dutch in the lead. For the properties themselves, see buying a house in the Luberon.