Frequently asked questions: the Home Select expertise

A property hunter (chasseur immobilier) is a regulated professional who sources property on behalf of a buyer. Where an estate agent represents the seller, a property hunter works exclusively for the buyer.

Estate agents work for sellers and aim to sell their listed properties. Property hunters work for buyers and look for the right property at the right price. Home Select's interests are aligned with yours: securing the best terms and helping you sidestep the pitfalls.

Yes. Home Select holds the professional 'Transaction' card issued by the Paris Chamber of Commerce, which is required by law. The firm is also a member of the FCI (Fédération des Chasseurs Immobiliers), the French property hunters' federation.

Home Select has two offers, both paid only on success: Exclusive, an all-inclusive exclusive search mandate at 2.5% incl. VAT of the net purchase price (minimum €10,000 incl. VAT); and Confidential, a simple search mandate reserved for projects of €2M and above, at 1.5% incl. VAT. You pay only on completion at the notary's office. If Home Select does not find your property, you pay nothing.

Home Select's fees are fixed and transparent: they reflect the quality of the service and the time devoted to each client, around 80 hours per assignment on average. Home Select negotiates 6% off the asking price on average, which more than offsets its fees.

You pay only on signing the final deed (acte authentique) at the notary's office, once the keys are in your hand. No setup fee, no deposit, no upfront payment.

No, Home Select's fees are separate from the notary fees. They are settled directly with the firm on signing and do not form part of the transfer tax base.

On average, Home Select finds the right property in 45 days. The exact timing depends on your brief, your budget and the state of the market. Some searches conclude in two weeks; others take three months.

Home Select shows you only the shortlist: 3 properties on average. Its hunters analyse up to a hundred listings and pre-view around ten to present only those that genuinely match your brief.

Yes, absolutely. If you find something yourself, Home Select can support you with the analysis, the negotiation and the follow-through, through its reduced-fee purchase support service.

Home Select is paid only on success. If the firm cannot find a property that suits you, or if you decide to call off your search, you pay nothing. There is no financial risk.

Yes. Home Select's support is end-to-end: from defining the brief to handing over the keys. The firm handles the preliminary contract, the conditions precedent and the coordination with the notary.

The search mandate is the contract between you and Home Select. It sets out your brief, the firm's remit, its fees and the terms of the engagement. It is required by law and governed by the Loi Hoguet.

It depends on the offer. The Exclusive offer relies on an exclusive search mandate: it lets Home Select fully commit to your search and mobilise its entire network. The Confidential offer, reserved for projects of €2M and above, relies on a simple search mandate: you remain free to search in parallel.

The mandate is signed for up to 12 months, renewed month by month. You can end it at any time with 7 days' notice, at no cost.

Home Select covers the 20 arrondissements of Paris and 68 towns across the Paris region, in the Hauts-de-Seine, Val-de-Marne, Seine-Saint-Denis and Yvelines. The most requested outside Paris are Neuilly-sur-Seine, Levallois-Perret and Boulogne-Billancourt to the west, Vincennes and Saint-Mandé to the east. Every town has its own page with price per sqm and commuting time.

Off-market refers to properties sold privately, never publicly advertised. Home Select receives over 100 off-market listings every day from its network of 15,000 professionals. Home Select secures 15% of its clients' properties off-market.

Home Select negotiates an average 6% below the asking price, around €45,000 on a property at €750,000. The saving often offsets Home Select's fees outright. Some negotiations reach 10 to 15%.

Home Select negotiates with solid arguments: market comparables, defects identified during the viewing, the seller's circumstances and time on market. The firm's knowledge of the market and its professionalism deliver results.

A property hunter whose searches sit in the prime segment, which in Paris means above 2 million euros: Haussmann etages nobles, private mansions, top floors with a view, rare homes. The difference with a prime estate agency comes down to the mandate. Barnes, Daniel Feau, Christie's and Sotheby's hold sales mandates and are paid by the seller. A property hunter holds a search mandate signed by the buyer and is never paid by the seller of the property bought. That is what allows the hunter to negotiate against the asking price rather than defend it.

The segment starts at around 2 million euros and trades between 15,000 and 30,000 euros per square metre in the 6th, 7th, 8th and 16th arrondissements. Price per square metre alone does not define prime, however: ceiling height above 3 metres, original mouldings and parquet, the etage noble, an open view, quiet and the quality of the building are together worth a 10 to 20% premium at the same address.

Four arrondissements account for most transactions: the 6th, the most expensive in Paris, around Saint-Germain-des-Pres and Odeon; the 7th, for large family floorplans and monument views; the 8th, from the Golden Triangle to plaine Monceau, for international pieds-a-terre and private mansions; and the 16th, from Passy to Auteuil, for the best space-to-price ratio in the segment. Four micro-markets trade at the same levels: the ile Saint-Louis, the Montagne Sainte-Genevieve, the upper Batignolles and Montmartre around avenue Junot.

Because their owners refuse public exposure. A listing reveals an address, an interior and sometimes a personal or financial situation. In Paris, around 15% of transactions complete with no listing. These properties circulate within a closed network: agencies holding a discreet mandate, notaries, building managers and wealth managers. Without access to that network, part of the market, often the rarest part, stays invisible.

Home Select reserves this offering for projects of 2 million euros and above. The support is exactly the same as in the Exclusive offering: brief, selection, pre-viewings, accompanied viewings, technical and legal analysis, negotiation, and follow-through to the handover of keys. Two things change. It rests on a simple search mandate, leaving you free to search in parallel. And Home Select presents off-market properties only, never publicly advertised. Home Select charges 1.5% of the net purchase price, payable entirely on success.

Yes. Home Select counts around 30% expatriates or international buyers among its clients. The firm runs everything remotely: virtual viewings, electronic signing of the mandate, coordination with the notary. Many of its clients make a single trip to Paris.

Your Home Select hunter views the property live with you on WhatsApp, FaceTime or Zoom. You can guide them, ask questions and ask to see specific details. It is as close to being there as it gets.

The mandate can be signed electronically. For the preliminary contract and the final deed, a power of attorney allows remote signing. Home Select coordinates everything with your notary.

Your contact details and your project are available to the hunter handling your search and to the people who assign enquiries, not to the whole firm. Nothing is sold, rented or exchanged with third parties. A prospect is kept for three years after the last contact, a client under mandate for the term of the contract plus five years. The full detail is on the Data security and protection page.

Yes. Your brief is shared only with the professionals approached for your search, and your maximum financing capacity is never disclosed to the other side during a negotiation. Completed searches published on the site are anonymised and testimonials show only a first name and an initial. The Confidential offer, reserved for projects of 2M EUR and above, exists for buyers who do not want their search circulating.

Never. No funds related to the acquisition pass through Home Select: all sums go through the notary's account, and its fees are payable on success on the day the deed is signed. An email announcing new bank details should be treated as fraudulent until you have verified it by phone on +33 1 78 76 78 10.

The site is served entirely over HTTPS with TLS 1.3, with a two-year HSTS header, a content security policy and form submission restricted to Home Select's own domain. Emails are signed with SPF, DKIM and DMARC. All of this can be checked from the outside with any public HTTP header analysis tool.