The numbers
The holding cost nobody budgets
A house costs something every year whether you are in it or not. The lines that make up the bill, where they are large, and the two that are invisible until the first year's end.
Rive Gauche and the west · France
Paris
The most liquid prime market in continental Europe, with a hundred-year floor under it and a notary system that makes every purchase slow, certain and documented. Paris is bought for the apartment itself, which is rarer on this list than it sounds.
The Ranesta Index
€15,000 to 25,000
Prime band, per m²
€40,000
Trophy, per m²
2.5 to 3.0%
Gross yield
45%
Sold off-market
8.0%
Cost to acquire
0.9%
Cost to hold, a year
Editorial estimate of prime asking bands, September 2026. Not a valuation. Typical entry €3.0 m, trophy from €40 m. Prime marketing time about 120 days.
Where exactly
Saint-Germain-des-Prés and the 6th
The address of record on the left bank: the streets between the boulevard and the river, the hôtels particuliers on the rue de Lille. Twenty to thirty thousand a square metre for the best floors.
The 7th: Invalides, Champ de Mars, the Gros-Caillou
Grand apartments with a view of the tower or the dome, the embassies and the calm. The market families from abroad prefer.
The Triangle d'Or and the 8th
Between the Champs-Élysées, Montaigne and George V: the apartments above the couture houses and the hotels, bought by buyers who want the address and the concierge.
The 16th and Neuilly
The largest apartments in the city, the private villas of Passy and Auteuil, the schools and the Bois. Where Parisian families with money actually live.
The short version
The apartment that is worth the apartment
Paris is the one capital where the prime market has a floor made of Parisians. A floor of a Haussmann building in the 7th is bought by a French family as often as by a foreign one, which means demand does not evaporate when a currency moves or a tax changes. Prices have doubled since 2005 with two mild pauses, and the pause of 2023 is over.
The system is the French one: a neutral notary, a binding contract with a cooling-off period, three months to the keys, and a wealth tax on real estate that starts at 1.3 million and is the main cost of ownership for a foreign buyer. Debt reduces it, which is why most large Paris apartments carry a mortgage the owner could repay tomorrow.
Off-market is close to half of the market above five million, driven by the hôtels particuliers and the top floors that owners do not want photographed. The good agencies of the 6th and 7th work their own books first, and a buyer known to be ready sees things a portal never shows.
Worth knowing
Acquisition costs
About 7.5 per cent in notary fees and duties on a resale; agency fees are usually inside the displayed price
Wealth tax on real estate
IFI above 1.3 million of net property, 0.5 to 1.5 per cent a year
Second-home surcharge
Taxe d'habitation on second homes in Paris carries the maximum surcharge of 60 per cent
Capital gains
19 per cent plus social charges with the taper, nothing after 30 years
Co-ownership
Almost everything is a copropriété; the minutes of the last three general meetings are part of the file
Speed
Prime Paris moves in months rather than years; well-priced apartments go in weeks
Who is buying
Parisians, then Americans, Brazilians, Lebanese and Gulf families in the 8th and 16th, and Europeans who keep a floor for the opera and the shows. Family offices buy whole buildings.
What the desk is working on
Floors of more than 250 square metres with a view in the 6th and 7th, hôtels particuliers at any price, and top floors with a terrace in the Triangle d'Or. One mandate seeks a building rather than an apartment.
Buying notes
Compromis with a ten-day cooling-off period, a five to ten per cent deposit, and the notary's searches; count three to four months. Costs run at about eight per cent all in. Have the copropriété's minutes and works fund read; a façade or lift renovation voted last year is a bill this year.
The hotspot vote
In Paris you take
Questions buyers ask
Left for Saint-Germain and the 7th, the addresses of record for foreign buyers; right for the 8th and 16th, where the largest apartments and the schools are. The prices meet at the top.
The IFI on anything above 1.3 million net, the second-home surcharge, the building charges. For a ten-million floor, call it a hundred thousand a year before staff. The holding instrument with the Paris profile has the detail.
With a terrace and a lift, yes, and by a wide margin. Without a lift the discount is real and permanent. Fifth floors in Haussmann buildings are their own market.
Close to half above five million, and almost all of the hôtels particuliers. Paris agencies are discreet by culture; a buyer who is known to them sees the floor before it is photographed.
Read next
The numbers
The method
Due diligence in six jurisdictions
The document that decides the purchase is different in every country: the planning file in Spain, the notary's searches in France, the geometra's survey in Italy, the lease in London. What to read, and who reads it.
The Private Letter
One letter a month.
One letter a month: what moved in the hotspots, one anonymised sale explained, one number worth knowing. No advertising, no tracking, one click to leave.