Explore selling prices of properties in your neighborhood over the past five years

A dedicated site providing free access to property sale prices over the last five years in France has just been updated by the French Ministry of Finance. 

A big change to the world of French real estate, the Demande de Valeur Fonciére website offers anyone the chance to access past real estate transactions for properties across the county, except in the Alsace-Moselle and Mayotte regions.  On the former site, also run by Bercy, users had to enter their tax identification number in order to access the database… enough to dissuade many people from use. This is no longer the case today.

How exactly does the site work?

On the new website, users simply choose the desired département, followed by the town or city, from the options on the left, while the map on the right zooms in on the area. Then, users choose the specific housing sector they are interested in, and can click on individual homes or apartment buildings from there. The site will then list all the sales made within the apartment building since January 1st, 2014.  Or, for a home, will provide the transactional history of the property.  The database also lists the sale price of the property, the date of the transaction, the surface area, and the number of rooms.

If you bought or sold a property since January 1st, 2014, you will be able to find its price and compare it to other homes of the same size in your neighborhood. For those looking to buy or sell, you can get an idea of price trends in your desired neighborhood as you start property-hunting.

Making the most of the site’s information

Take for example Odéon, the most expensive district in Paris according to French notaries (€17,410/m² at the end of February 2019).  Within the selected building (in pink), five properties were sold since January 1st, 2014: among them, two apartments, both at 79 m², (or potentially one apartment, that sold twice).  The first was sold in February 2015 at €1.065 million, or nearly €13,500 per m². Two years later, the second one was sold for €1.257 million. If it is, indeed, one apartment that changed hands twice, the owner made a significant capital gain of nearly €200,000. Otherwise, if this is actually two different apartments, the location of the apartment within the building itself, as well as general price increases over these past years, may explain the price difference. Neither the year of construction, the condition of the building, nor the floor of the sold apartment is specified.

The prices indicated in this database should be used for informational purposes only and not as proof to up-sell your property or persuade a buyer to purchase it. It is also worth noting that the most recent transactions shown on the website date back to mid-2018, and that values have certainly changed since then.  If you want a better idea of more recent prices, some professionals have launched their own interactive websites providing such information.  MeilleursAgents’ site, for example, shows what today’s market value would be for each property sold over the last five years at the address in question.

Source: Découvrez le prix des biens vendus depuis 5 ans dans votre quartier