Calculate your property value online with these websites
Prople need accurate property valuations for many reasons – and not only for high value homes and wealth tax liabilities – so the government has set up online tools to make the job easier.
How much is your home worth?
Some owners, especially those preparing to sell a property, simply ask an estate agent but even then it helps to have a fair idea of what your home is worth. Accurate values are needed by those with property portfolios of more than €1.3million (30% reduction on main homes) as they are required for the annual IFI wealth tax declaration.
However they can also be needed for other reasons such as inheritance, gifts, tax controls, expropriation procedures or for working out housing aid. The government sites show what properties in any area have sold for in recent years, with the idea that a comparison will let you accurately estimate each property’s market value.
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Two free websites to use
There are two main free online property price tools which can be used for legal and tax documents. The simplest and easiest to use is Patrim but it requires you to give your tax number to sign in to the online tax system, and to give a reason for looking for valuations. Patrim is available from the tax website impots.gouv.fr site.
Under the Données Publiques tab, users should then see a heading Rechercher des transactions immobilières. Clicking on this opens a page to agree to the conditions of use and give your reason for checking. Once done, there is a map with a form to give the address/locality of your search and then you get a list of all property transactions in the timeframe and area you chose. In a city, you may be asked to refine your search if there are too many results.
The results come complete with a map, showing you where the properties are situated, the date of the sale, the estimated year of building, number of rooms, size of the grounds, declared usable surface price, and price/m2, along with the option of downloading more details. An anonymous search is available on the data.gouv.fr website. Write Demandes de Valeurs Foncières in the search box to reach a page with details of properties and prices sent by notaires and the cadastral map of each commune.
It includes all France (and overseas territories), except for Alsace-Moselle, with its different legal system, and Mayotte. Formatted as a text file and downloadable by year, it is an extremely large file and takes a long time to download.
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It is not user-friendly, giving a screen of numbers and letters. With patience, the exact address of sold properties, amounts paid and details such as building size, rooms, and garden size can be discovered. Prices listed are only for the property part of transactions and do not include furniture, vehicles or other equipment which might be included in the overall sale price. Files for the last five years are available. There is access to current-year data, updated weekly, but this is not necessarily complete so for legal or tax purposes the last full year’s data should be used.
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