Chestertons Global has announced a new partnership with Olivier Morvan & Co, a boutique agency operating in Nice and nearby parts of the south of France.

The new affiliate will operate as Chestertons Nice, led by Morvan, who has worked this part of the Côte d’Azur for more than 25 years. 

The firm operates a team of four specialist brokers and covers the Riviera market. 

Valbonne sits at the edge of Sophia Antipolis, Europe’s largest technology and science park, home to approximately 2,400 companies and 40,000 workers. 

Demand for residential property in the village and surrounding area is shaped in part by that professional base, drawing in technology executives, entrepreneurs and internationally mobile professionals looking for a permanent or long-term base within 30 minutes of Nice Côte d’Azur airport. 

Saint Paul de Vence, one of the region’s most preserved medieval villages, has long attracted buyers drawn by cultural heritage and lifestyle rather than coastal frontage, typically with a preference for properties that do not trade openly on the market. 

Nice itself, France’s fifth-largest city and a major transport hub with direct connections across Europe, supports a growing permanent residential market alongside the traditional second-home sector. 

International demand is broad: the firm reports sustained buyer interest from the United Kingdom, the United States, Switzerland, Belgium, the Netherlands, Scandinavia, Germany and the Middle East, with North American enquiries increasing in the most recent period. 

Buyers are seeking both primary residences and long-term investment assets, with lifestyle and capital preservation the primary drivers.

Morvan worked as an estate agent in London, an experience that shaped his understanding of how international buyers approach property decisions and what they expect from a brokerage. He returned to the South of France and has since built a practice centred on long-standing client relationships, off-market access and detailed local knowledge across the hinterland and the wider Côte d’Azur. 

He says of his new role: “Our clients are international, well-informed and they ask the right questions. 

“Which locations hold value across a cycle? Where supply is genuinely constrained? What the planning context is for a property they are considering? 

“Answering those questions accurately takes years in a very specific market.”