Two quiet signals crossed paths this year. On 24 June, a bill reopened the door to letting energy-inefficient homes, subject to a works commitment. Six months earlier, a decree had altered the electricity conversion coefficient used in the DPE (energy rating) calculation. Taken separately, each looks minor. Taken together, they reshape the equation facing a Paris buyer hesitating over a property rated F or G.

We are not predicting the end of the energy discount. Paris has never followed national averages on this front. But in the files currently on our desks, three specific checks save time, money, and occasionally a negotiation.

The article that follows sets out those three steps. They do not replace an audit or a works estimate. They come before, and they tell you whether the property deserves a closer look.

Buying an F or G in Paris in 2026: three steps to take before signing

The timetable on energy-inefficient homes shifts in early 2026. For the Paris buyer weighing up a poorly rated property, three precise checks matter more than a general reading of the texts.

First, the context. On 24 June 2026, Housing Minister Vincent Jeanbrun presented the Relance logement bill to the Council of Ministers. It allows F and G properties to be let again, subject to a formal works commitment, with a three-year window for detached houses and five years for flats in co-ownership. The government is aiming to keep between 650,000 and 700,000 homes on the rental market by 2028. Alongside this, a decree of 13 August 2025 lowers, from 1 January 2026, the electricity-to-primary-energy conversion coefficient from 2.3 to 1.9, aligning it with the European figure. In Paris, where INSEE counted 326,000 homes rated F or G in 2018, the two texts have to be read together.

First step. If the property you have in view is heated by electricity and holds a DPE issued after 1 July 2021, ask for the free certificate delivered by ADEME through the Observatoire DPE-Audit. It recalculates the rating under the new method, without a new visit and without cost. A property rated F in 2024 may come out E in 2026 without a single radiator being changed. According to estimates published at the time of the reform, roughly 850,000 homes exit the energy-inefficient category through recalculation alone. This administrative document, obtained online, sometimes completely alters the reading of the property and of its discount.

Second step. Recalculate the actual discount, in Paris, on a specific micro-market. The Notaires de France report that in 2024 older flats rated G sold on average 12% below those rated D, and G-rated houses up to 25% less. Those figures do not transpose mechanically to rue de Sèvres or avenue Trudaine. Paris stock built before 1948 naturally concentrates the poor labels, and location there still weighs more heavily than the energy rating. Ask the vendor, or your hunter, for comparables in the same arrondissement, the same period of construction, the same typology. The discount exists. It almost never has the scale that an anxious buyer imagines.

Third step. Decide on the use in light of the reprieve. For a primary residence, the rental timetable is secondary; the question of thermal comfort and of resale in five years remains open. For an investor, the emerging regime turns the works timetable into a yield parameter rather than a guillotine: it becomes possible to buy a G, let it, and schedule the works over five years in co-ownership, provided a formal commitment is signed and backed by a contractor agreement with a deposit paid. Parliamentary scrutiny could begin as early as July, with adoption targeted before the end of 2026. The text is not yet voted. Its trajectory is clear.

One technical point deserves clarification. The regulatory energy audit, compulsory since 1 April 2023 for the sale of an F or G, applies only to sole ownership: detached houses and whole buildings. For a flat in a standard co-ownership, no audit is produced at the point of sale. The diagnosis then runs through the last three annual general meeting minutes and, where it exists, the multi-year works plan. That is where you see whether the building has voted through external insulation, replaced the collective boiler, or commissioned a facade restoration. That is where the property's real trajectory can be read, one that appears on no label.

These three steps do not replace a works estimate or the visit of a thermal engineer. They allow you to sort, ahead of an offer, between an F that will soon tip into E without any works, a G whose building has already voted its renovation, and a property whose label reflects a genuine structural difficulty. The real question is never today's label. It is the building's trajectory.

Read the AG minutes before making an offer

In co-ownership, no energy audit is produced at the point of sale. The last three annual general meeting minutes and the multi-year works plan, where it exists, tell you the essentials: what has been voted, what has been rejected, what remains to be funded.

In the meantime, if a project is taking shape, we remain at your disposal for an initial conversation. We assess your brief against the market and deliver an unvarnished reading.