Paris house market stalls with record-high prices

Paris’s housing market is stalling as buyers are deterred by record prices following two years of gains that outstripped London and New York.

Average prices fell by about 3 percent in the first five months of the year, according to an index compiled by Databiens.com based mainly on reports from the city’s affluent western districts. While it’s the only gauge so far to register a drop, other indicators show that transactions are falling and the time it takes to sell a property has almost doubled from a year ago.

“The flow of money, which was almost euphoric, has halted,” said Laurent Lakatos, the founder of London-based Databiens. “There’s been a pickup in the number of apartments offered at a discount.”

Home values in the French capital appreciated by about 20 percent last year, the biggest annual increase since at least 1991, the Paris Chamber of Notaries estimates. The surge in demand lifted prices across the city to a record as fewer owners offered their houses and apartments for sale and only 2,785 homes were built.