Buy a house in the French Basque Country

On the coast between Biarritz and Saint-Jean-de-Luz: Biarritz and Anglet for year-round town life, Bidart and Guéthary for a clifftop village feel, Saint-Jean-de-Luz for its sheltered bay. Over 12 months to end of June 2026, the median house price there ranged from €5,400/m² in Saint-Jean-de-Luz to €7,900/m² in Biarritz. Home Select checks every view and every distance to the beach from the house itself.

No: Soorts-Hossegor and Seignosse are in the Landes, north of the Adour, which roughly marks the edge of the Basque Country. But the Landes coast extends the same market, half an hour from Biarritz, at high prices: a median of €12,000/m² for houses in Hossegor over 12 months to end of June 2026, against €2,500/m² across the Landes as a whole. Home Select searches it as part of the same hunt.

The traditional Basque house, the etxe, is a farmhouse of the Labourd or Lower Navarre, mostly built in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries together with its land. The neo-Basque villa, born in the early twentieth century, borrows its codes, red or green half-timbering, wooden balconies, wide roofs, for seaside homes in Biarritz, Anglet or Saint-Jean-de-Luz. The first is found inland, often in need of restoration; the second is fought over near the beaches.

Biarritz, where the median house reached €7,900/m² over 12 months to end of June 2026, is a proper town, with its airport and life all year round. Saint-Jean-de-Luz, at €5,400/m², is a family town around a sheltered bay, quieter out of season and a quarter of an hour from Spain. One is chosen for town life and surf, the other for family swimming and the charm of the harbour; Home Select often runs both searches side by side.

In the Labourd hinterland, ten to twenty minutes from the beaches: Arcangues, Arbonne and Ahetze to stay close to the coast, Espelette, Sare or Ainhoa for a farmhouse with its meadows. On the coast, a real garden is rare, except under the pines of Chiberta or in the Seignosse forest. In these villages, no median tells you the price: Home Select values each house against comparable sales.

For some, yes: the cliffs of Biarritz, Bidart, Guéthary and the Urrugne corniche are retreating in places, as is the dune on the Landes coast. Towns on the national list map the exposed zones, and the risk disclosure statement attached to the sale says whether the house lies in one; works may then be restricted. Home Select reads these documents before any offer and has the cliff or the dune assessed when a house is in the front row.

In the towns concerned within the Pays Basque urban community, letting a furnished holiday home that is not your main residence requires a change-of-use permit, sometimes with compensation; in Hossegor and Seignosse, which belong to another group of towns, the rules are checked with the town hall. Towns classed as high-demand housing areas can also raise the residence tax on second homes. Home Select checks these rules before any offer.

Yes, because the finest houses are rarely advertised, and those that are often go within days, sometimes before your first trip. A buyer’s agent works for you alone, from shortlisting to negotiation, and checks what the listing leaves out: a retreating cliff, an extension without a permit, drainage to redo. Home Select, a buyer’s agent in the French Basque Country, adds its network of 15,000 agents and professional partners and fees due on success only.

Over 12 months to end of June 2026, the median price per square metre of houses in the French Basque Country ranged from €4,500/m² in Bayonne to €12,000/m² in Hossegor. Pyrénées-Atlantiques: €2,500/m² median for houses, over 4,103 sales. Landes: €2,500/m² median for houses, over 4,751 sales (DVF / DGFiP via data.gouv.fr, October 2026 release, 12 months to end of June 2026). Home Select reads these figures street by street before any offer: view, land and condition make most of the price.

The calendar depends on how rare the target property is in {nom} and on your availability: Home Select frames it at the brief, then holds it. Properties are first seen on video, and your decisive viewings are grouped into a single trip.

Through the network and direct approach: Home Select receives more than 100 properties every day from its 15,000 professional partners before they go on sale, and also contacts owners when the setting calls for it. In {nom}, the monitoring starts with two sectors: Hossegor and Biarritz. That is often where the unfindable property is.

Home Select, a buyer’s agent in the French Basque Country, charges 2.5% of the net purchase price (minimum €10,000 incl. VAT) on the Exclusive offer, or 1.5% on the Confidential offer for projects of €2m and above, plus 10% of the negotiated reduction in both cases. Home Select is paid on success only, and also on what you save: nothing is due until you have bought.