France's richest communes are not its priciest
Half of metropolitan France's communes report a median income above €22,060 a year and a price above €1,593 per square metre. Rank the richest and the housing market splits in two.
Across metropolitan France, half of communes report a median disposable income above €22,060 a year, and half a residential transaction price above €1,593 per square metre. Overlay the two GeoDwel layers and they move together — but loosely. A commune's earnings tell you less about its property price than the map's matching gradients suggest.
the richest communes, priced apart
Rank France's larger communes by income and the top of the list splits into two housing markets. Along the Geneva border in Ain, high earnings meet comparatively cheap metres; in central Paris, near-identical incomes meet prices two to three times higher. Income sets the ceiling; something else — supply, planning, proximity to Geneva or the Seine — sets the price.
price climbs with income, but not far
Group every commune into income quartiles and the price gradient is real but shallow: the median metre roughly doubles from the lowest-earning quartile to the highest. Read it the other way and the link is weaker still — moving from the cheapest to the dearest quartile of property lifts the median income by less than a fifth. Price varies far more than earnings explain.
what the layer omits
The inconvenient trait: the price layer is thin where the map is quietest. DVF publishes a median only where at least five sales are recorded, so many inland communes carry no price at all — 31,105 of 34,848 have one. Income is sparser still, missing in roughly 3,600 communes. In the low-traded interior, an empty cell is not a bargain; it is an absence of data.