What the price per square metre does not tell you
The median price of older apartments within the Paris city limits (intra-muros) stands at €9,580/m² in the first quarter of 2026, up 1.2% year on year according to the Notaires du Grand Paris. The figure is useful for framing a conversation, but insufficient for valuing a prestige asset. It is a median: half of all sales are concluded below it. Other observatories record an average of around €9,800/m² in September 2026. The gap between these two measures already says the essential. A statistic describes a population of properties, never a given apartment.
The top end of the market follows its own scale. In the €3 million to €5 million bracket, the average price stands at around €19,200/m². Above €5 million, it approaches €27,500/m². Between the Paris median and the prestige segment, the ratio is one to almost three. In other words, the relevant benchmark for a €4 million acquisition is not the Paris market, but the few dozen comparable sales concluded in the same area and the same bracket.
Recent momentum calls for the same caution. The Paris market is up 1.8% over twelve months, and the luxury segment 2.5% to 3% over the same period. These increases come after a cumulative fall of around 8% between mid-2022 and the end of 2024. A property bought at the 2022 peak has therefore not necessarily recovered its purchase price, costs included. This is the first thing to establish when a seller justifies the price by market growth.
The address comes down to a few streets
In the Triangle d'Or of the 8th arrondissement, around the avenues Montaigne and George-V and the Champs-Élysées, values regularly exceed €25,000/m². The top end of the 16th stands at around €16,300/m² in July 2026. The Parc Monceau district, with its hôtels particuliers (private town mansions) and Haussmann-era buildings, ranges from €15,000 to €22,000/m². Three neighbouring arrondissements, three distinct price regimes.
Parisian hôtels particuliers change hands at between €22,000 and €40,000/m² depending on the neighbourhood and whether there is a garden. A range in which the top is double the bottom, for the same type of property, shows where value really lies: the aspect of the garden, the street frontage, the depth of the plot, the room for manoeuvre left by easements and by the opinion of the Architecte des Bâtiments de France (the State architect responsible for heritage protection) within the protected surroundings of historic monuments.
International clients account for around 60% of transactions in the Paris luxury segment. This has a direct consequence for the choice of address. A prestigious street that is hard to identify from abroad mechanically reduces the number of future buyers. For a property of equal quality, an address that is readily recognised from London, Geneva or New York broadens demand on exit. It is a criterion of value, not of vanity.
The building decides before the apartment
The dressed-stone façade, the carriage entrance (porte cochère), the entrance hall, the staircase, the presence of a caretaker and the condition of the common parts weigh on value as much as the living area. A buyer forms an opinion before opening the door of the lot. A neglected hall imposes a discount that the interior fit-out never fully recovers.
The copropriété (the co-ownership of the building) is a liability to be examined like a balance sheet. The minutes of the last three general meetings, the level of service charges, works voted but not yet called, the works fund (fonds de travaux), the multi-year works plan (plan pluriannuel de travaux) and any proceedings in progress make up the minimum file. A façade restoration that has been voted but not funded ends up entirely in the price, on purchase or on resale.
The energy aspect calls for a reading specific to 2026. The reform of the diagnostic de performance énergétique (DPE, the French energy performance certificate) applicable from 1 January 2026 lowered the primary energy conversion factor for electricity from 2.3 to 1.9. Around 850,000 homes are no longer classed as passoires thermiques (energy-inefficient homes) without any works whatsoever, mostly F ratings that became E. An improved rating therefore does not mean an improved building. If the acquisition is intended for letting, the timetable remains restrictive: class G has been banned from letting since 1 January 2025, class F will be from 1 January 2028 and class E from 1 January 2034, for new leases and re-lettings.
Layout, light, floor level
A well laid out 110 m² apartment sells better than a poorly organised 140 m² one. The loi Carrez (the law governing the certified private floor area) measures an area, not the quality of a layout. The points of loss are well known: oversized corridors, bedrooms without storage, a kitchen relegated far from the reception rooms, no principal suite, rooms opening one onto the next without a corridor. Each one reduces the pool of buyers without appearing in a listing.
Light is the scarce resource of Parisian buildings. Floor level, aspect, the depth of the courtyard, the height of the buildings opposite and the orientation of the reception rooms change the experience of the place and its value. A dual-aspect apartment running through the building, or at least one with two exposures, retains broad demand. The same property on the ground floor overlooking a courtyard and on the fourth floor overlooking the street does not belong to the same market.
Atypical properties require separate examination. An open-plan space without a bedroom, a duplex served by a narrow staircase, a former studio, a remarkable address on the top floor with no lift: these properties find a buyer, but only one at a time. Rarity creates value only if it meets real demand, not mere singularity.
The documents to gather before making an offer
A price discussion only makes sense once the file has been assembled. The technical diagnostic file (dossier de diagnostic technique) must be provided at the latest at the promesse de vente (the preliminary sale agreement), but nothing prevents it from being requested before an offer is written. The same applies to the co-ownership documents, which determine the assessment of the price net of works.
- The minutes of the last three general meetings and the annual service charge demand.
- The balance of the works fund and the adopted multi-year works plan.
- The complete technical diagnostic file, including the energy performance certificate and the loi Carrez measurement.
- The co-ownership rules (règlement de copropriété) and the schedule of division (état descriptif de division), to check the designated use of ancillary spaces.
- The quotes or provisions relating to works voted but not yet called.
- The existence of any proceedings brought by or against the owners' association (syndicat des copropriétaires).
Unlike a detached house or a building in single ownership (monopropriété), an apartment in co-ownership is not subject to the energy audit on sale. The decision to carry out works rests with the general meeting. The buyer must therefore reconstruct, from the minutes and the multi-year plan, what an audit would have provided elsewhere.
The real cost of entry
The Finance Act for 2025 allows departmental councils (conseils départementaux) to raise the rate of droits de mutation à titre onéreux (transfer duties on purchases) from 4.50% to 5.00%, from 1 April 2025 to 30 April 2028, by resolution. As at 1 June 2026, almost all départements apply this ceiling, including Paris and the whole of Île-de-France. As transfer duties represent around 70% of frais de notaire (the acquisition costs collected by the notaire, the French public notary) on older properties, acquisition costs now reach up to around 8.5% of the price in these départements, compared with 7% to 8% where the rate has remained at 4.50%. First-time buyers acquiring their main residence are excluded from the 0.5-point increase.
The order of magnitude is worth setting out. On a €2,000,000 acquisition in Paris, acquisition costs amount to around €170,000. This sum is not recoverable on resale. It is the first gap between the price paid and the value of the asset, and it must appear in the financing plan in the same way as the equity contribution.
Borrowing adds its own constraint. In September 2026, the average 20-year rate stands at 3.35% according to the Observatoire Crédit Logement/CSA, with brokers' barometers ranging from 3.40% to 3.54% and the best profiles obtaining 3.00% to 3.10%. The 10-year OAT (French government bond) passed 4% in September 2026, a level not seen since 2009, and the trend is rising again. A financed acquisition must therefore be concluded quickly, or made subject to a mortgage condition precedent (condition suspensive de prêt) drafted with a realistic maximum rate.
Finally, the acquisition changes the base of the impôt sur la fortune immobilière (IFI, the French real-estate wealth tax). The entry threshold remains set at €1.3 million of net taxable real-estate assets on 1 January, with a scale that reaches 0.7% from €1,300,001 to €2,570,000, 1% up to €5,000,000 and 1.25% up to €10,000,000. The 30% allowance on the main residence applies to only one residence per household, and not to a property held through a société civile immobilière (SCI, a French property-holding company) in which the household lives.
What we look at first
Our order of examination does not change. The building and the co-ownership first, because they are the only elements a buyer can never correct alone. The layout next, because it determines the pool of buyers on resale. The price last, once the cost of works and the co-ownership liabilities have been factored in. An attractive price often signals an unidentified item of expenditure.
This method has its limits. It replaces neither the notaire's examination of the title deed and easements, nor an architect's opinion on the feasibility of a reconfiguration, nor that of a tax lawyer when the acquisition forms part of a holding structure or a succession strategy. The firm's role is to organise these areas of expertise, not to stand in for them.
There remains the criterion that buyers underestimate most: resaleability. With around 2,800 transactions a year above €1 million in Paris, of which 800 to 900 are above €2 million, the exit market is counted in hundreds of transactions a year. A prestige asset must remain desirable to a buyer who does not share the seller's tastes. This is the only operational definition of long-term asset value.
