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+33 1 78 76 78 10 contact@homeselect.paris60 rue François 1er, Paris 8e
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Commercial and business premises
Shops, offices, workshops, freehold walls: the Paris commercial market is more opaque and more technical than residential. A dedicated hunter searches, vets and negotiates for you, acting for the buyer or tenant only. 15,000 partners, 1,700 listing sites monitored, fees paid only on success.
Your project
A retailer looking for the right pitch, a company that would rather own its offices than rent them, an investor in shop freeholds, a professional practice in need of consulting rooms: in every case, Home Select works for you alone. We are never instructed by a landlord or a seller on your search: no conflict of interest, and a negotiation fought entirely from your side of the table.
Street-level shops, offices, workshops and light-industrial units, consulting rooms for professional practices, freeholds with or without a sitting tenant, premises to convert. Each family has rules of its own: permitted use, existing lease, public-access (ERP) compliance. Your hunter knows them and frames the search accordingly.
The French 3-6-9 commercial lease, permitted use under planning rules, accessibility and ERP standards, pre-emption rights, recoverable charges: everything is checked before the offer, not after. That is where the most expensive mistakes in a commercial project are made. Our guide to buying commercial property in Paris covers this framework in detail.
Our monitoring covers 1,700 listing sites continuously, and the Home Select network (15,000 agents, notaires and managing agents) flags at least 100 off-market properties a day. For commercial premises, two further seams the portals ignore: units left vacant for months, and businesses winding down, where the best terms are negotiated.
Success-only fees Nothing is owed before completion: French law (loi Hoguet) prohibits any advance payment.
How we work
The same method as the 1,200+ searches we have completed since 2011, adapted to the specifics of business premises.
Intended use (trading, investment, conversion), required planning designation, floor area, catchment area or district, budget, purchase or lease. This initial framing avoids viewing premises that are legally unusable for your activity. The search mandate is signed.
Specialist commercial-property portals, agencies, notaires, owners of vacant units, businesses ceasing trade, and our 15,000-partner network. A real example in the Sentier district: 12 units identified, 6 viewed, 2 feasibility studies for a design studio.
A pre-visit of every serious lead, then a full review: permitted use under the planning code, ERP and accessibility compliance, the existing lease where there is a sitting tenant, charges, works required. Risky premises are ruled out before you travel, as on this search for a former workshop near the Canal Saint-Martin.
An offer argued on documented levers (vacancy, works, price references), protective clauses, clearance of pre-emption rights, review of the preliminary contract or the lease, support through to completion at the notaire or signature of the lease. On our two latest published commercial missions, the negotiation reached 8.9% and 10% of the asking price.
Where it is won
With business premises, the mistake is almost never in the asking price: it is in the document nobody read, which made the project impossible or expensive.
What sinks a project
What your hunter does
Two mandates
The same hunting work in both cases: only the outcome differs, a deed of sale on one side, a commercial or professional lease on the other.
For a purchase, our fee is 2.5% of the purchase price, minimum €10,000 incl. VAT, due at completion. For a lease search, the fee is set out in the mandate before any commitment. See our fees in full.
They searched with us
I needed a commercial unit in the 2nd arrondissement for my architecture practice. Commercial leases in Paris are a world of their own, with legal subtleties I did not master. Frédéric Girard not only found a bright, functional street-level space, he guided me through the regulatory side (change of use, ERP, accessibility). A true partner, well beyond the search itself.
Sophie Ithurbide was both very present and very professional on my search for consulting rooms. She grasped my criteria quickly and found the right premises in record time. I recommend her wholeheartedly, and I keep recommending her around me with my eyes closed!
As a company director, I simply did not have time to search. My hunter filtered more than 200 listings, viewed around twenty properties and presented only 4, all relevant. Without a hunter I would have needed months to find it, if I had found it at all. A profitable investment.
Frequently asked
The hunter runs the search on your behalf, acting for the buyer or tenant only: the brief (use, planning designation, floor area, catchment area), sourcing across the whole market including off-market, legal and technical review of each unit (permitted use, ERP compliance, existing lease), pre-visits, negotiation of the price or rent and of the clauses, then support through to the deed of sale or the lease. Home Select, a buyer's-side firm founded in 2011, has a hunter dedicated to commercial and business premises.
For a purchase, the fee is 2.5% of the purchase price, minimum €10,000 incl. VAT, due only on success at completion: French law (loi Hoguet) prohibits any advance. For a lease search, the fee is also success-only and set out in the mandate before any commitment.
Every type of business premises: street-level shops, offices, workshops and light-industrial units, consulting rooms for professional practices, retail arcades, shop freeholds with or without a sitting tenant, premises to convert. The territory is the same as all our searches: the 20 arrondissements of Paris and 68 communes of the Île-de-France region.
Commercial freeholds trade between €5,000 and €25,000 per m² depending on location, condition and the activities allowed, with a gross yield of 4 to 7% for investors. In some districts, a street-level unit costs 30 to 55% less than a flat in the same area: that is what often makes buying your own offices more attractive than renting them.
Yes. The Home Select network (15,000 agents, notaires and managing agents) flags at least 100 off-market properties a day, and our monitoring covers 1,700 listing sites continuously. Commercial premises add two seams of their own, absent from the portals: units vacant for months, whose owners carry charges and property tax at a loss, and businesses ceasing trade, where private negotiation is the rule.
Yes, under conditions. Converting a shop into offices requires a prior declaration of change of use, generally accepted in central Paris, with a one-to-two-month review period. Conversion into housing is far more tightly controlled and may require compensation. We have supported both cases: a Sentier unit turned into offices for a design studio, and a former workshop in the 10th arrondissement turned into a loft, whose change of use had already been secured.
Yes. A lease search covers sourcing the premises, reviewing the French 3-6-9 commercial lease or professional lease (term, indexation, allocation of charges, deposit, works), negotiating the terms and supporting you through to signature. In Paris, a commercial lease commits you for a minimum of nine years, with a tenant break option every three years: every clause weighs on the whole term.
They are two distinct transactions. Buying the walls means buying the property itself: you become the owner of the premises, which is exactly what our search mandate covers. Buying a fonds de commerce means buying a trading business (clientele, brand, leasehold rights): a business transfer, which we do not handle directly. If your project combines both, we search for the walls and coordinate with your advisers on the business side.
We find for you
A hunter dedicated to commercial and business premises, a 15,000-partner network, success-only fees. Reply within 24 hours.
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