In June 2023, Noura El Harakat and Djibril Guindo, who were looking to buy property, attended the inaugural marketing event for the Olympic Village housing units. The event, held in a film studio complex called the Cité du Cinéma in Saint-Denis (Seine-Saint-Denis), had been organized by Vinci Immobilier, one of the developers selected to build the Village, which straddles the municipalities of Saint-Denis, Saint-Ouen and L'Ile-Saint-Denis and has been built to house athletes during the Olympic and Paralympic Games from late July to early September.

The young couple eventually gave up on their idea. "Despite the many advantages of this program, such as its location and level of security, we were unfortunately unable to acquire a property there due to the excessively high price," said El Harakat. "With bank rates rising and interest rates very high, our financial capacity has diminished, forcing us to explore areas where prices are more affordable." She and her husband eventually settled on Drancy (Seine-Saint-Denis), "a town undergoing a complete transformation."

As this couple's story suggests, buyers have not been rushing to purchase the apartments in the Village, which have been on the market since the summer of 2023 through Vinci or Icade, another developer. The latter, a subsidiary of Caisse des Dépôts et Consignations [a French public financial institution], has launched the commercialization of an initial building with 88 units, from one-bedrooms to family apartments, on the Saint-Ouen side, opposite the Seine. While some units were sold in December, a dozen apartments were reserved in January.

"The conditions are difficult," admitted Florence Chahid-Nourai, the director of major residential projects in the Paris region at Icade Promotion. "But we have no doubts about our product. Saint-Ouen is a very dynamic city, and, besides, we have two years to sell these apartments." After the Games, the developers will indeed have time to transform the athletes' accommodation into standard apartments – along with some office spaces – ahead of their scheduled delivery between the last quarter of 2025 and the first quarter of 2026.

While Vinci Immobilier did not want to release the details of its sales at this stage, its website indicates that several dozen apartments are still for sale in its Apogée building, situated on the Saint-Denis side.

Who chose to buy in the Village? Icade has data on its first 10 buyers. "They are mainly first-time buyers and salaried workers with a certain level of income. They all work in Paris and are buying [a unit as] their main residence. They are couples from the 17^th and 15^th arrondissements of Paris, Pré-Saint-Gervais or Aubervilliers. One comes from Saint-Ouen, another from Neuilly," said Chahid-Nourai.

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