Provence-Alpes-Cote d’Azur · City guide
Real estate news in Nice.
The honest, data-backed guide to France’s fifth city. What it costs, who lives here, where to buy, and what daily life on the Baie des Anges is really like, written for the international buyer.
What this guide is
Eight chapters, built on French public data, so you arrive knowing the city, not just the postcard.
Nice in numbers · sources: INSEE & DVF
The key figures, before the brochure language.
Every number below comes from official French sources: the 2022 census and 2023 income files from INSEE, and the 2024 land registry (DVF).
Population
353,701
France’s 5th largest city · 2022 census
Density
4,793/km²
residents per km² · 73.8 km²
Aged 65 and over
23.5%
nearly one resident in four
Median income
€24,080
disposable, per year · 2023
Apartment price
€4,804/m²
median · 6,753 sales in 2024
House price
€7,016/m²
median · 348 sales in 2024
Owner-occupied
47%
of main homes · the rest rent
Second homes
13.8%
of all dwellings · a Riviera trait
The guide
Eight chapters on life in Nice.
Cost of Living & Rent
What a month in Nice costs, from rent per square metre to the weekly market.
Read the chapter →Safety & Neighbourhoods
A district-by-district read on where to live, from the Old Town to Cimiez.
Read the chapter →Healthcare & Access to Care
Hospitals, English-speaking doctors and how the French health system works.
Read the chapter →Jobs & Local Economy
Tourism, tech at Sophia Antipolis and the remote-work reality on the Riviera.
Read the chapter →Who Lives Here
The demographics behind the postcard: age, households and the community.
Read the chapter →Culture, Leisure & Sport
Museums, the Carnival, the sea and a calendar that runs all year.
Read the chapter →Getting Around
Tram, train, the airport and whether you really need a car in Nice.
Read the chapter →Schools & Education
International schools, the French system and options for a family.
Read the chapter →Why Nice
A real city, not just a resort.
Most visitors know Nice as a stretch of pebble beach and a palm-lined promenade. Residents know a denser, older city: an Italian-tinged old town, hillside villas in Cimiez, a working port, and a year-round life that has little to do with the summer season.
With nearly 354,000 residents, Nice is the fifth largest city in France and the anchor of a metropolitan area of more than half a million people. It has its own international airport, the second busiest in the country, a tram network, two universities and a hospital system that serves the eastern Riviera.
It is also an expensive, unequal city, and this guide does not hide that. Property sits among the highest in France outside Paris, almost one home in seven is a second residence, and the poverty rate is real. Knowing that going in is what separates a good purchase from a costly one.
The Riviera you picture is real. The city behind it is more interesting, and worth understanding before you buy.
On the map
Where Nice actually is.
Nice sits on the Mediterranean in the far south-east of France, capital of the Alpes-Maritimes and heart of the Metropole Nice Cote d’Azur. Monaco is 30 minutes east, the Italian border 40, and the airport puts London and Geneva within two hours.
We source and manage property across the city and the wider Riviera, from the old town and the port to the hillside quarters of Cimiez and Mont Boron.
Thinking about Nice? Start with a conversation.
Tell us your budget, your ideal quarter, and what your life on the Riviera looks like. Within 48 hours you will have a first reply from the project lead who would run your file, in English.