What your house is worth in France, and when we will not say
France is the market where we are strongest, because the French state publishes the price of every notarised sale. It is also the market where we refuse to answer most often, and this page explains both, because the second one is what makes the first one worth reading.
Prices paid, not prices asked
What DVF gives us
Every sale recorded by a French notaire since 2014, with the price, the date, the commune, the floor area and the property type. Published by the state, free and open. Unlike the United Kingdom register, it carries the floor area, which is the single thing that makes a price per square metre possible.
What a listing gives you
What a seller hopes for. That is not what a buyer signed, and the gap between the two is not a constant you can correct for.
We look for the sales nearest the exact address first. That level needs at least eight usable nearby sales before it means anything, and below that we fall back to the whole commune and say which one we used. Recorded sales run to the last published year, so we bring them to today with the official notaires and INSEE index rather than pretending the register is live.
A number you cannot defend is worse than no number at all.
The three times we refuse
Below a confidence threshold we return nothing rather than a figure about the nearest street that happens to match. Valuing the wrong house is worse than valuing none.
Fewer than eight usable transactions nearby and the local level disappears. We go back to the commune, and the answer says so.
Where the property prices well above the middle of its own market, we publish no central figure at all. The reason is measured, and it is below.
Backtested against recorded French sales, median models come out 30 to 48% under the real sale price on premium homes and 52 to 72% under on exceptional ones. That is how a median is built. It describes the middle of a market, and these houses are not in the middle. So above that line we publish a floor drawn from what the house can earn instead, and we currently label that floor provisional, because the yield behind it measured anywhere from 1.49% to 16.63% across the French markets we tested. We would rather show you a number wearing its own warning than a confident one we can prove wrong.
What no model sees from an address
The view. The true condition. The aspect. What has been redone and what has not. None of it is in any public file, and all of it moves a price more than the bedroom count does. In Saint-Tropez we measured two four-bedroom villas at about 1,170 and about 9,376 euros a night. Identical bedroom count, factor of eight. Price is set by the view, the finish, the address and the service included, almost never by counting bedrooms.
The rental side, which does not depend on the register
If the house is let, the question we can answer without any sale data is how many nights a year comparable properties actually sell, and at what rate. We count nights actually sold, never an occupancy percentage, and the rental income guide sets out the method. Fifty per cent occupancy implies 182 nights sold. In Saint-Tropez the market sells around 45 nights at the high rate and perhaps 10 more around it, about 92,000 euros gross rather than the 193,000 the occupancy method produces.
What happens after the range
The range is free and immediate. The detailed report, with the price per square metre, the building-and-land split and the comparable sales we used, is sent by email if you ask for it. The owner never pays us. How we are paid is set out in full, including the weakness in it.
Questions owners actually ask us
Where does the French number come from?
From sales actually recorded by French notaires around the address, published by the state in the DVF register. Those are prices paid, not asking prices in listings. An asking price is not a paid price.
What does it cost?
Nothing. The range appears on screen with no account. The detailed report, with the price per square metre, the building-and-land split and the comparable sales, is emailed if you ask for it. The owner never pays us.
When do you refuse to answer?
Three cases. If we cannot place the address in France with enough confidence we return nothing, because valuing the wrong house is worse than valuing none. Below eight usable nearby sales we fall back to the commune and say so. And where the home prices well above the middle of its market we publish no central figure at all.
Why refuse a central figure on high-end homes?
Because we measured the error. Backtested against recorded French sales, median models come out 30 to 48% under on premium homes and 52 to 72% under on exceptional ones. That is how a median is built, not bad luck. Publishing a figure we can measure to be wrong is the thing this site exists to stop doing.
Does the rental side work in France too?
Yes, and it does not depend on the sale register. We count nights actually sold, never an occupancy percentage. Fifty per cent occupancy implies 182 nights sold in a year, which very few seasonal markets reach.
France is one of the few markets where we will answer at all. Compare it with why we publish no house valuation in the United Kingdom, with the United States, where our figure is a model output rather than a recorded sale, see every market ranked by rental income, or read this page in French.
Start with the number
Three questions. Free. And a report we would be happy to defend in front of you.
Estimate my home →Last updated 08/08/2026.