Selling a French home privately saves the agency fee, which typically runs 6–8 % of the price, and costs you the four jobs the agent was doing. Secrets.RealEstate lets a private seller publish a listing and a verified public profile, so the question is no longer whether you can, but whether you will do the work.
What does a French estate agent actually charge?
Between 6 % and 8 % of the sale price on a typical mandate, negotiable, and on top of the fixed public costs the buyer pays. On a €400,000 sale that is €24,000 to €32,000 — enough that it is worth a clear-eyed look at what the money buys rather than a reflex in either direction.
It buys four distinct things, and they are separable:
- Exposure — being seen by people who are actually looking, right now, in your area.
- Qualification — filtering the curious and the unfinanceable out of your Saturday.
- Paperwork — the diagnostics file, the compromis, the deadlines that carry penalties.
- Negotiation — a professional buffer between you and a buyer picking at your home.
You can replace all four. What you cannot do is replace three of them and hope the fourth sorts itself out, because it is usually the fourth that costs you the price difference.
Why do buyers hesitate with a private seller?
Because they cannot tell you apart from a bad experience they have already had. An agency is a known quantity with an address and a licence; an anonymous phone number in a listing is not. That gap is one of trust signals, not of price, and it is the one thing a private seller can close cheaply.
Three signals do most of the work:
- A real, permanent page about you — photo, name, what you are selling, reachable in one click from the listing. A page that search engines index also means a buyer who types your name finds something legitimate.
- A verified badge, meaning someone checked that the person behind the listing is the person they claim to be.
- Openness about the property's weak points. A seller who publishes the flood zone and the energy label before being asked reads as honest, and honest is the whole currency here.
The profile page and the badge are what the SELLER tier exists for: see what a seller profile includes.
Can you sell a French home without an estate agent?
Yes, and there is no legal obstacle: in France a private individual can sell their own home directly, sign a compromis de vente and go to a notary without ever giving a mandate to an agency. What changes is who does the work. The seller takes on the diagnostics file, the listing, the viewings, the buyer's financing questions and the negotiation, and the saving is the agency commission, which typically runs 6 % to 8 % of the price. Secrets.RealEstate covers the platform half of that job for a private seller — one public listing, a verified public profile that search engines index, and direct buyer contact with no intermediary — for a monthly subscription rather than a percentage of the sale. The notary remains mandatory in every case: the deed has to be authenticated, whether or not an agent was involved.
The data a seller should publish before being asked
A buyer who has to dig for the bad news assumes there is more of it. A buyer handed the bad news up front spends their energy on the good news instead, and decides faster.
Publish these four, without waiting for the question:
- The DPE, with its date. Every buyer will look it up anyway, and the legal letting rules make it the first thing a buy-to-let buyer checks.
- The recorded risks for the address — flood, clay shrinkage, seismic zone. They are public French data; withholding them buys you nothing and costs you the negotiation when they surface.
- What has been renovated, and when. This is the single attribute the public sale register does not carry, which means it is the one thing only you can supply.
- The running costs. Charges, taxe foncière, heating. A serious buyer is modelling these already, badly.
Informed buyers decide faster and negotiate less. That is the whole argument for handing over the risk and location data yourself rather than letting a buyer's own report surprise both of you a week before signature.
Getting seen without an agency window
An agency's real asset is not its window; it is the flow of buyers already searching. A private listing has to plug into that flow somewhere. Three routes, in order of effort:
- Be in the inventory buyers are already browsing. On 17 September 2026 the platform carried 63,085 live French listings, refreshed hourly, and a seller's own property sits in the same search and the same map as the rest.
- Be found by name and by neighbourhood. An indexed profile page carrying your listings is a second door into the same property, and it keeps working while you sleep.
- Reach the buyers researching your street specifically. That is what the smart advertising placement does for the professional tier — it puts a seller in front of people already reading about the exact area: see how the placement works.
What the platform side costs
Two tiers, because a person selling one home and an agent running a portfolio are not the same customer. SELLER Private is €19 a month: one public listing, the public profile, the verified badge, direct buyer contact. SELLER Professional is €99 a month: up to 100 published listings, the advertising placement, view analytics and buyer-conversion insights.
Both are subscriptions you cancel when the property sells, which is the structural difference from a commission. A percentage is charged once and scales with your price; a subscription is charged monthly and scales with how long the sale takes. If you sell quickly, the subscription is dramatically cheaper. If your home sits on the market for two years, do the arithmetic honestly before choosing.
Frequently asked questions
Is a notary still required if I sell privately?
Yes, always. The deed of sale must be authenticated by a notary in France. What is optional is the estate agent, not the notary.
Who prepares the diagnostics file?
You do, as the seller, through a certified diagnostician. The DPE, asbestos, lead, electrical and gas checks and the risk statement are the seller's obligation whether or not an agency is involved.
Can I list privately and still use an agent later?
Yes, provided you have not signed an exclusive mandate. Read any mandate's exclusivity clause and its notice period before signing it, not after.
What is the single biggest mistake private sellers make?
Pricing from the neighbour's asking price instead of from recorded sales, then holding that number for six months. The market answers the price, and it answers slowly: https://secrets.realestate/property-price-calculator
