France

France's residential market entered 2025 in a cautious recovery after the 2022-2024 correction. INSEE's NotairesINSEE index showed existinghome prices up +1.0% q/q in Q1 2025 and +0.4% y/y, while annual transaction volume rose from 845k (end2024) to ~880k by endMarch 2025. By endSeptember 2025, Notaires de France estimate 921,000 existinghome transactions over 12 months (+~11% y/y), signalling renewed liquidity and a broader buyer return. Demand was reenabled primarily through financing: the Banque de France reports new mortgage rates (housing loans excluding renegotiations) around 3.10% in November 2025, supporting affordability compared with the 2023-2024 peak. Supply remains the structural constraint. SDES reports ~378,806 housing authorisations over Dec 2024-Nov 2025 (around 9.5% below the 5year average), keeping delivery risk elevated and sustaining rental pressure in tight areas. Consumer behaviour is increasingly energyprice sensitive: ads must flag F/G homes as logement consommation nergtique excessive , and since 1 Jan 2025, DPE class G dwellings in metropolitan France can no longer be offered for rent-pushing investors toward renovationready stock and increasing price dispersion by energy class. Digitally, France is a mature portal market led by leboncoin (horizontal classifieds) and SeLoger (specialist); Similarweb shows leboncoin had more total visits than SeLoger in Dec 2025, reinforcing a 'reach vs. intent' split in lead generation. Portals and proptechs are piloting AI assistants and automated valuation/content tools, while courts are starting to penalise largescale listing scraping-signalling a tightening around data rights and inventory integrity. Business & investment sentiment in 2025 stayed constructive around distribution assets: Reuters notes Axel Springer's classifieds division (including property portals in AVIV) is majorityowned by KKR and CPP Investments, and France saw further classifiedstoproperty convergence via the Arche/Bien'ici ecosystem.

France's portal market is shaped by the AVIV Group's multi-portal strategy and the market recovery from the 2023-2024 rate-driven transaction slump. AVIV Group — which owns SeLoger, Meilleurs Agents, Logic-Immo, and Bien'ici under its French portfolio, alongside portals in Belgium (Immovlan, Immoweb stake), Germany (Immowelt), and Southern Europe (idealista stake) — is the dominant marketplace operator in France. Backed by KKR and CPP Investments via Axel Springer's classifieds division, AVIV has the capital and the strategic ambition to build a pan-European portal group, but France remains its largest and most established market.

SeLoger is the market-leading portal in France for residential sales and rentals among professional agents, with Meilleurs Agents providing the AVM and price intelligence layer that differentiates AVIV from a pure listing platform. Meilleurs Agents estimates are widely referenced in French media and consumer conversations, giving AVIV a data credibility layer that the secondary portals (LeBonCoin Immobilier, PAP.fr) cannot match. LeBonCoin Immobilier remains the dominant private seller channel and is a meaningful presence in the B2C segment, particularly for rentals and lower-price-point transactions.

The French market's regulatory environment is complex and consequential for portals. The DPE (Energy Performance Diagnosis) reform that introduced the ABC/G classification scale and introduced restrictions on renting G-rated properties has created a compliance and data challenge across the rental stock. Portals are required to display DPE ratings prominently, and the progressive ban on renting G-rated homes (from 2025) and F-rated homes (from 2028) is effectively a forced retrofit or withdrawal cycle that will reshape rental inventory over the medium term. Portals and agents that can clearly communicate DPE status, compliance obligations, and renovation pathways will have a service advantage.

The 2025-2026 period should see modest transaction volume recovery as ECB rate cuts flow through to fixed mortgage rates (France's mortgage market is predominantly fixed-rate and pass-through from ECB cuts is not immediate). Notaires de France data from early 2025 already shows volume beginning to recover from the 2024 low, and BPCE/Meilleurs Agents forecasts call for continued recovery. For portal operators, recovering transaction volumes mean recovering agent instruction rates and more active listing churn, both of which drive portal engagement.

For operators in the French market in 2026: SeLoger and the AVIV portal group remain the essential professional portal cluster for residential sales. Meilleurs Agents integration into listing presentations is increasingly expected by French consumers who have been conditioned to cross-check estimates online. LeBonCoin Immobilier is useful for private landlord access and price-sensitive buyer segments. DPE compliance is a live regulatory and commercial risk that portal platforms are embedding into listing workflows, and agents who proactively surface DPE status in their listings will reduce post-publication compliance queries.

France's new homes market is navigating a prolonged construction slowdown, with building permits and completions at multi-decade lows in 2024-2025 due to the combination of higher financing costs, developer margin compression, and planning complexity. This supply constraint, against a background of continued urbanisation pressure in Paris, Lyon, Bordeaux, and Nantes, creates structural undersupply conditions that will support medium-term price stability once transaction volumes recover. For portals, the new homes channel — developer project pages, Vente en l'État Futur d'Achèvement (VEFA) listings, and new homes search filters — is an important commercial relationship that SeLoger and Bien'ici are investing in. Agents and developers who leverage these new homes products early in project launch cycles capture buyer interest before the secondary market alternatives are priced and available. Agents listing properties with G or F DPE ratings should proactively include renovation cost estimates and potential post-retrofit DPE uplift information in their listings, as buyers are increasingly using these data points to factor renovation costs into their offer pricing and financing requirements.