80’s and 90’s: Evolution of the real estate market

As a result of the presidential election of François MITTERRAND in 1981, the French real estate market suffered a serious crisis.

However, the former President of the French Republic had chosen Gordes to become his holiday resort long before to be elected. This was to enhance the reputation of the village that experienced unexpected growth. Parisians chose this new South as their preferred destination, soon followed by the Swiss and the Americans.
Luberon then became a trendy destination where media owners, captains of industry, politicians and show business personalities enjoyed the same places. Construction of pleasure properties and huge renovation works of traditional farmhouses then flourished in the area. Lush gardens designers also bloomed. The adage that “when building trade goes well, all is well” had never been more true for the construction industry than it was at that time. Many new cultural events were also created to provide entertainment during these leisure or holiday times, turning the region between Orange and Aix-en-Provence into a paradise for festivals, meetings and exhibitions.

As demand increased, the development of the agencies was further accelerated and Christian-Jacques opened offices at La Tour-d’Aigues to cover the southern Luberon, then at L’Isle-sur-la-Sorgue.

He travelled more than 50,000 km a year in order to radiate out widely to the lower Alps and support its twenty employees. But in 1991, the Gulf War broke out and with it started a real estate crisis. The strategy of Christian-Jacques was then to close the offices which were not close to Gordes to refocus essentially on customers support on the local real estate market to the detriment of a network managing. "It was also important for me not to lose the soul of this profession," he confides.

For about 5 years, sales slowed down enormously and market prices dropped inexorably. It was not until 1996 that business took off again at a new pace. Remaining attentive to this recovery, Christian-Jacques hired Nicolas SOUMILLE, a young graduate with a Masters in Law. The agency can still count on this talented negotiator nowadays. It was also the time when he launched the agency's first site.