Houses for sale in Gammarth

Gammarth is the northern end of La Marsa, where the coast rises into a hill and pine trees take the place of apartment blocks. People buy a house here for the calm, for the view over the gulf and for an address all of Tunis recognises. The downside is well known: it is the most expensive area in the delegation, and the gap with Marsa Erriadh or Sidi Daoud often runs to hundreds of thousands of dinars for a comparable floor area.

The villa for sale listings in Gammarth gathered here are posted by owners and agencies, and you call the advertiser directly. They cover this area only: to compare with the rest of the delegation, from the family houses of Erriadh to the semi-detached homes of Bhar Lazreg, see the houses for sale across La Marsa.

Three Gammarths under one name

The village, down below, keeps older houses on sometimes cramped plots, a few minutes' walk from the beach and the small harbour. The hills, known as Gammarth Supérieur, are made up of residential estates in the forest: large plots, quiet streets, villas from the 1990s to the present day, often on two levels with a garden. Further on, along the road running towards Raoued, stretches the hotel zone, where you mostly find upmarket residences and few detached houses.

So a house for sale in Gammarth looks different depending on where it is. In the village, you pay for being near the sea and accept a building that needs work. On the hills, you pay for the land, the view and the neighbours. Those who simply search for a villa in Gammarth, or "la villa gammarth", are usually after this second product: the house standing on its own plot, with a pool or room to dig one.

What sets the price

Here, the land weighs more than the building. A villa with an open sea view and a generous plot commonly goes above one and a half million dinars, and the finest addresses go well beyond that. A more modest house in the village, or a villa to renovate with no view, can drop below a million, but rarely very far below. The state of the pool, the orientation and having a self-contained upper floor move the price up or down a notch.

Buyers are mainly Tunisians living abroad preparing a return or long summers, business owners working at Les Berges du Lac who want to come home to peace and quiet in the evening, and a few investors who then let to expatriate families. Diaspora viewings are concentrated in summer, and it is often afterwards, when sellers have not closed a deal, that a discussion about price becomes possible.

Day-to-day life in Gammarth

Life is quiet, sometimes too quiet for anyone without a car. The TGM stops at La Marsa, buses are rare on the hills, and shopping is done by car towards La Marsa or the La Soukra road. On the other hand, Les Berges du Lac and Les Berges du Lac 2 are a quarter of an hour away outside rush hour, and the airport is not far.

Summer changes the atmosphere: the beach and the hotels draw crowds, traffic gets heavier, and the noise of evening parties can carry into some streets near the tourist zone. Before buying, go there on a Friday evening in July as well as a Tuesday morning in winter.

The paperwork before the pool

Ask for an individual land title and a recent certificate of ownership issued by the land registry. Many villas in the area have been extended over the years: check that the building permit covers the upper floor, the pool and the outbuildings, because an undeclared extension will complicate your resale. On the hills, some plots border wooded areas where building is restricted: ask La Marsa municipality before planning an extension.

On the technical side, look at the waterproofing of the roof terraces, the water tank and booster pump, and damp on the walls exposed to the sea. Whether you go through an agency found by searching for Gammarth property or deal with a private seller, these documents should be requested before any preliminary sale agreement. If you are torn between buying and renting, the houses to rent in Gammarth give an idea of the rents the area can command, and the houses for sale in the Tunis governorate put these prices into perspective.