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If you own a house in France and live in England, this is the season when the question comes up over Sunday lunch: sell next spring, or hold on another year? The latest official figures give a clear answer on prices and a less comfortable one on everything around them. Prices of existing homes in mainland France fell 0.8% in the year to the second quarter of 2026. Houses fell more than flats. Sales have stopped growing, mortgage rates are drifting up, and the European Central Bank raised its rates in September.
The national body of French notaries, Notaires de France, updated its analysis of the second quarter on 22 October. We’ve taken every figure in it, checked them against the official price index that INSEE publishes with the notaires, added the city detail and the mortgage numbers the analysis leaves out, and corrected one date. Then we’ve asked what it means if you own, or want to buy, from abroad.
Prices: flats hold, houses slip
After a flat first quarter, prices of existing homes fell again in the second. Across mainland France they were 0.8% lower than a year earlier, and 1.0% lower than in the first quarter once seasonal effects are removed. The split by property type is the story. Flats were almost unchanged over the year (−0.1%). Houses fell 1.3%.
In the regions, everywhere outside Île-de-France, prices fell 1.0% over the year, after no change in the first quarter and a rise of 1.1% in the last quarter of 2025. Houses there fell 1.3% and flats 0.3%. Île-de-France turned down after three quarters of small annual rises, between +0.1% and +0.5%: prices there were 0.3% lower than a year earlier. The fall there came from houses (−1.5%), while flats rose 0.3%. Paris flats were up 0.6% on the year, and flats in the inner suburbs (−0.1%) and outer suburbs (+0.1%) barely moved.
| Q2 2026 | All homes, 3 months | All homes, 1 year | Flats, 3 months | Flats, 1 year | Houses, 3 months | Houses, 1 year |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mainland France | −1.0% | −0.8% | −0.7% | −0.1% | −1.3% | −1.3% |
| Île-de-France | −0.6% | −0.3% | −0.5% | +0.3% | −0.7% | −1.5% |
| The regions | −1.2% | −1.0% | −0.8% | −0.3% | −1.4% | −1.3% |
The national averages hide wide gaps, and INSEE’s full release of 8 September has the detail the notaires‘ summary leaves out. Flats in Marseille were up 2.2% on the year, and flats across Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur 1.3%. Houses in the Lille area rose 2.1%. At the other end, flats in Lyon fell 1.9%. Flats in small towns and the countryside edged up 0.3%, while houses in Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur fell 1.0%. If you own a flat in Marseille or elsewhere in that region, the national headline overstates your problem. If you own a house anywhere else, it describes it fairly.
One-year change in prices of existing homes, Q2 2025 to Q2 2026, provisional. Source: INSEE, Informations Rapides n° 216, 8 September 2026 (Notaires-INSEE indices). Chart: theenglishinvestor.com
Sales: a plateau after the rebound
In the twelve months to the end of August 2026, 951,000 existing homes were sold in France (every department except Mayotte). That’s 3.6% more than a year earlier, but the growth rate has slowed sharply since the end of 2025, when it was close to 13%. After the recovery that ran from autumn 2024 to the end of 2025, the market has been on a plateau for several months. At this pace, the notaires think annual sales could fall back to around 920,000 by the end of the year. That’s comparable to 2017, except that in 2017 the market was rising. INSEE’s measure puts it another way: sales over the past year amount to 2.5% of the housing stock, against a peak of 3.3% in the third quarter of 2021.
The notaires‘ reading is that people still have plans but can’t see far enough ahead to carry them out. Buyers take longer to decide, negotiate harder or put the purchase off. Some sellers still struggle to accept the new level of prices and prefer to wait. That gap between what buyers will pay and what sellers will accept is what slows sales down.
Behind the hesitation sits a run of shocks: the pandemic, the energy crisis that followed, geopolitical tension and now worries about public finances. Inflation is picking up again in the euro area and in France, driven mainly by energy prices. That squeezes the share of household income left for a property purchase and revives fears of higher interest rates. Concerns about French public debt, and about debt in the euro area more widely, add to the pressure. When investors expect inflation or doubt that debt is sustainable, bond yields rise, governments pay more to borrow, and banks and borrowers can end up paying more too. Households are being careful and saving. Even where a purchase is planned, it’s often put back.
Mortgage rates: why 4% is the line to watch
Financing decides how fast the market moves. According to the Banque de France, the average rate on new home loans, excluding renegotiations, was 3.32% in August 2026, after 3.30% in July. The European Central Bank raised its three key rates by 0.25 points on 10 September, taking its deposit rate to 2.50% from 16 September, and tension in the Middle East keeps the risk of inflation alive through energy costs. Further rises in long-term bond yields would add to the pressure on lending.
The notaires write that the average rate is now “approaching 4%”. The published averages don’t quite say that. The Crédit Logement/CSA observatory put the average rate on loans actually granted at 3.40% in September. The figure that is close to 4% is the all-in annual cost, the taux annuel effectif global (TAEG), which includes borrower insurance and fees. For loans of 20 years or more, the Banque de France measured an average of 4.05% when it set the legal ceilings for the last quarter of 2026. So the warning is fair for long loans if you count everything a borrower pays. On the headline rate, the market is nearer 3.3% to 3.4%.
The notaires see a rise in loan rates above 4% as a particularly worrying threshold. It would cut what households can afford and push more purchases back. It would also make it harder to move for owners who borrowed at very low rates between 2019 and 2021. When they sell to buy elsewhere, the extra cost of a new loan can swallow a large part of their capital gain, especially if they can’t keep their existing loan on the same terms. The legal ceiling on loan costs, the taux d’usure, is another constraint: a bank can’t lend if insurance and fees push the loan’s TAEG above the limit.
| Fixed-rate home loan, 1 October to 31 December 2026 | Average all-in cost (TAEG) measured | Legal ceiling (taux d’usure) |
|---|---|---|
| Under 10 years | 3.07% | 4.09% |
| 10 to under 20 years | 3.51% | 4.68% |
| 20 years and more | 4.05% | 5.40% |
To put a number on it: on a €200,000 loan over 20 years, the monthly payment is about €1,150 at 3.4% and about €1,212 at 4%, before insurance. Over the life of the loan, that’s roughly €15,000 more in interest. For a buyer living abroad, French banks also tend to ask for a bigger deposit, which our mortgage guide for non-residents covers in detail.
Money isn’t the whole explanation, the notaires add. Property keeps its place in French family wealth because it is a tangible asset seen as a way to protect and preserve capital over the long term. That doesn’t make the market liquid. With everyday costs rising and the outlook unclear, some owners would rather keep their property than sell, and buyers wait for better conditions.
New homes: still stuck
The new-build market still faces structural difficulties. The Jeanbrun scheme changed the incentives for buy-to-let investors, as we explained in our Jeanbrun piece, but its effect on demand and construction remains to be seen. Economic and regulatory uncertainty weighs on investors and developers, and construction starts remain too low to meet housing needs over time.
The monthly figures from the statistics service of the ecology ministry (SDES) show the pattern. In August 2026, 29,749 homes were authorised, 1.1% fewer than in July after seasonal adjustment. That followed a flat July and a 4.6% fall in June. Authorisations for individual houses fell 2.1%, while those for blocks of flats were almost stable (−0.4%). Construction began on an estimated 27,663 homes in August, 4.1% more than in July, after rises of 5.8% in July and 1.8% in June, with houses up 2.8% and flats up 4.9%.
Sales of new homes by developers were weaker. In the second quarter of 2026, reservations fell 2.2% on a year earlier to 16,112, homes put on sale fell 6.5% to 17,499, the stock of unsold homes rose 1.4% to 124,027, and cancelled reservations rose 7.5% to 2,893. These annual changes use figures that are not seasonally adjusted. INSEE’s index of new-home prices was stable over the year to the second quarter and down 0.1% on the quarter.
The release also notes that new consumer lending rose to €5.5 billion in August, from €5.1 billion in July.
The energy label: better ratings, partly on paper
The most useful part of the notaires‘ release for owners abroad is a study of homes sold by energy rating, the diagnostic de performance énergétique (DPE), which grades homes from A, the most economical, to G. The phased ban on letting the worst-rated homes, the passoires thermiques (literally “thermal sieves”), has changed what gets sold as well as what gets let. It was set in motion in summer 2021, when the new DPE method took effect on 1 July and the Climate and Resilience law followed on 22 August. After that, the share of homes sold with an F or G rating rose sharply: from 11% over 2021 to 16% in 2022 and 17% in 2023. That points to owners selling homes they expected to be unable to let.
The trend has since reversed. In 2025, 23% of existing homes sold were rated C and 35% rated D, up 2 and 3 points on 2024, while the share rated E fell 5 points to 20%. In the second quarter of 2026, the share rated C reached 27%, against 23% a year earlier, and the share rated E kept falling at a similar pace. Small flats still have worse ratings than the average flat: in 2025, 18% of small flats sold were rated C and 32% rated D, against 28% and 36% for all flats. Yet that is where the improvement was fastest, with the share of C and D up 7 points against 4 points for all flats, mostly at the expense of E, F and G.
| Share of existing homes sold, by DPE class | A | B | C | D | E | F | G |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Q2 2022 | 2% | 5% | 20% | 34% | 24% | 10% | 6% |
| Q2 2026 | 3% | 6% | 27% | 34% | 17% | 8% | 5% |
The notaires warn that these shifts may reflect better homes, but may also, and perhaps more, reflect changes to how the DPE is calculated. The method was changed twice in ways that lift ratings without any work being done. From 1 July 2024, a ministerial order of 25 March 2024 changed the thresholds for homes under 40 m², which were being rated too harshly. (The release dates this change to 1 January 2024, but the order itself says 1 July 2024.) From 1 January 2026, an order of 13 August 2025 cut the factor used to convert electricity into primary energy from 2.3 to 1.9, which helps electrically heated homes. Small flats are exactly where the ratings improved fastest, and electrically heated homes are the other group these changes favour.
There is a third change still to come, which the release doesn’t mention. From 1 January 2027, an order of 19 August 2026 lowers that electricity factor again, from 1.9 to 1.7. Existing DPEs stay valid, and owners will be able to download a free certificate showing the new rating from the observatory of ADEME, the state environment agency, as they could for the 2026 change. We explained the mechanics in our piece on the 1.7 coefficient. If you own an electrically heated flat rated F or G, check its new rating in January before you put it on the market or look for a tenant.
Ratings matter because of the letting ban. In mainland France, homes in the very worst sub-class of G have been barred from new leases and renewals since 2023, and every G-rated home since 1 January 2025. F-rated homes follow in 2028 and E-rated homes in 2034. A housing bill adopted by the Senate at first reading on 8 July 2026 would let owners of F and G homes keep letting if they commit to renovation works. It isn’t law yet, as our article on the bill explains.
Heatwaves: a nuisance now, a price factor later
Heatwaves can disrupt the market for a while, with viewings and house moves postponed. For now, the notaires don’t see them as a significant national factor in prices or sales. Over the longer term, climate change could widen the gap between properties, as energy ratings already do. Comfort in summer, exposure to heat, location and natural risks may weigh more in what buyers choose and what they pay. We looked at what that means for buyers in our guide to heat-trap homes.
What the notaires expect for the winter
The notaires base their forecasts on the preliminary sale contracts, the avant-contrats, signed months before completion. These point to prices stabilising in autumn 2026. In the regions, prices would be close to level over the year. In Île-de-France, flat prices would stay broadly unchanged, with a slight fall expected in Paris, while house prices would be lower than a year earlier.
In the short term, they see the main risk in the number of sales more than in a new sharp fall in prices. The end of the year may get a boost from deals already under way and from family wealth transactions, especially gifts, without that signalling a wider recovery. Early 2027 calls for particular caution: continuing economic and budget uncertainty, possible pressure on rates and the approach of the presidential election could make households wait longer. If borrowing stays affordable and prices stabilise as the contracts suggest, the market could keep adjusting without a new break. A clear rise in loan rates, especially above 4%, or a financial shock linked to the public finances, could deepen the slowdown. The notaires stress that a debt crisis is not a given, only a risk. INSEE publishes the third-quarter price index on 24 November 2026.
The decision rule
Selling a house from abroad: price it against this year’s sales nearby, not against what the house was worth in 2022, and allow for a longer sale. A 1.3% fall on a €300,000 house is €3,900. Set that against what a longer wait costs you: taxe foncière, insurance, upkeep and, if you’ll convert the proceeds into sterling, the exchange rate.
Selling a flat: the national figures give you less reason to discount, especially in Paris, Marseille or elsewhere in Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur. Lyon is the exception, and the notaires‘ contracts point to a slight dip in Paris this autumn.
Buying: houses offer the most room to negotiate. Get your financing agreed in principle first, and check the all-in cost against the legal ceiling for your loan length.
Owning an electrically heated F or G flat: get the free updated rating in January 2027 before you sell or let.
Our view: a soft patch with a paper improvement inside it
We read these figures as a market that has stalled after a short recovery, with prices drifting down slowly and the real risk sitting in the number of sales. A 0.8% fall over a year is small. For houses, the direction has turned, and the notaires‘ contracts suggest stabilisation at best for the winter. If you were planning to sell a house anyway, waiting for 2027 doesn’t look like a winning bet on these numbers, given an election, rising rates and the budget all lie ahead.
The energy-label figures deserve a second look. The improvement is real in part, but two changes to the calculation, and a third coming in January, are doing a share of the work. For owners, that cuts both ways. An electrically heated flat that was unlettable may become lettable without a single radiator changed. A buyer should remember that a better label on paper doesn’t mean a warmer flat in January or a cooler one in August.
Readers, are you selling or holding your French property this winter, and has an agent already asked you to cut the price? If you’ve bought recently, how much did the seller come down? Have you checked whether your flat’s energy rating changes in January?
FAQ: French property prices in 2026
Are French property prices falling in 2026?
Slightly. Prices of existing homes in mainland France were 0.8% lower in the second quarter of 2026 than a year earlier, according to the Notaires-INSEE index. Flats were almost unchanged (−0.1%) and houses fell 1.3%. The notaires‘ preliminary contracts point to prices stabilising in autumn 2026.
Where are French property prices still rising?
Over the year to the second quarter of 2026, flats rose in Marseille (+2.2%), across Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur (+1.3%) and in Paris (+0.6%), and houses rose in the Lille area (+2.1%). Flats in Lyon fell 1.9%.
What is the average French mortgage rate in late 2026?
The Banque de France measured 3.32% in August 2026 on new home loans, excluding renegotiations, and the Crédit Logement/CSA observatory measured 3.40% in September. Including insurance and fees, the average all-in cost on loans of 20 years or more was 4.05%, against a legal ceiling of 5.40% for the last quarter of 2026.
Will my flat’s energy rating change in 2027?
If it is heated by electricity, it may improve. From 1 January 2027 the factor used to convert electricity into primary energy falls from 1.9 to 1.7. Existing ratings stay valid, and you can download a free certificate with the new rating from ADEME’s observatory.
