Buying a loft in France: converted workshop, factory, warehouse or open-plan floor

What is a loft?

The loft was born in New York in the 1960s and 1970s, when artists moved into the upper floors of the deserted factories and warehouses of SoHo: large open floors, cast-iron columns, workshop windows, and no partitions. Paris adopted it in the 1980s, in the workshop courtyards of the Faubourg Saint-Antoine, Bastille and Montreuil, then the large provincial cities followed as their industrial districts emptied: the slopes of the Croix-Rousse in Lyon, the wine warehouses of the Chartrons in Bordeaux, the docks of the Joliette in Marseille.

The word has no legal definition, and listings use it for three different properties. The original loft, business premises converted into a home, with its materials and its history. The developer’s loft, a large open-plan floor in a new or restructured building, sold as “loft style”. The artist’s studio, finally, often a glazed workshop on a courtyard in a residential building, with mixed permitted use. This guide covers all three, because the same questions arise: the permitted use, the co-ownership, the structure and the volume.

Where to buy a loft in France?

Lofts are found where industry left buildings and the city reclaimed them: the former workshop and warehouse districts of the large cities, a few minutes from the centre. Three cities concentrate Home Select’s search; Paris and its inner suburbs, which have the most, are served by homeselect.paris and, on this site, by the pages for Montreuil, Pantin and Saint-Ouen.

Lyon: the Croix-Rousse, Confluence and Villeurbanne

The silk-weavers’ buildings on the slopes and the plateau of the Croix-Rousse, with their four-metre ceilings built for the looms, are the original lofts of Lyon; the Confluence district, the former workshops of Gerland and Villeurbanne, the printing works and garages of the Guillotière gave the others. The page on buying a loft in Lyon describes these districts, their prices and their pitfalls.

Bordeaux: the Chartrons, Bacalan and the Bastide

In Bordeaux, the loft was born in the chais of the Chartrons, the wine merchants’ warehouses with stone vaults, then in the sheds of Bacalan and the Bassins à flot, and on the right bank, in the Bastide, around the former barracks that became Darwin. See buying a loft in Bordeaux; the échoppes converted into single-storey lofts are described on the page on buying a house in Bordeaux.

Marseille: the Joliette, the Belle de Mai and the Panier

The docks of the Joliette, the former manufactories of the Belle de Mai, the soap works and the workshops of the Panier and the rue de la République made the lofts of Marseille, often with a view over the harbour. The page on buying a loft in Marseille describes this market, where light, floor level and the security of the building count as much as the volume.

Toulouse, Montpellier, Nantes and the other cities

In Toulouse, the brick workshops of the faubourgs and the former warehouses of Saint-Cyprien; in Montpellier, the workshops of the Faubourg Boutonnet and the former wine warehouses by the station; in Nantes, the Île de Nantes and its halls; in Lille, Roubaix and Saint-Étienne, the textile and engineering factories. Home Select runs the search there remotely, with its network of partners.

Paris and the inner suburbs

Paris keeps its workshop courtyards of the 11th, the 20th and the Faubourg Saint-Antoine; the inner suburbs have taken over, in Montreuil, Pantin and Saint-Ouen, in the former factories and the warehouses along the canals, in the Île-de-France area. For Paris itself, Home Select welcomes you on homeselect.paris, with its agents of eastern Paris.

How much does a loft cost?

No public statistic gives the price of a loft. The DVF register of sales, published by the tax administration, files it among apartments when it is a co-ownership lot, and among houses when it occupies a whole building. The median price for apartments in a city therefore gives a market benchmark; the loft is then compared with its peers, in the same district.

The price of a loft is formed on the volume and the ceiling height, the light, window walls, floor level, orientation, the address and the district, the condition and the quality of the conversion, and the lawful residential use. An original loft carefully restored in a reclaimed district is negotiated above the median for apartments; a dark open floor on the ground floor of a courtyard, or premises whose use is not settled, well below. Comparable sales are sought in the same district, loft by loft, over several years.

The floor area calls for careful reading: the gross floor area of a loft counts the mezzanines, the parts under the glazing and sometimes spaces less than 1.80 metres high, which the Carrez area, the only one that is compulsory in a co-ownership, does not count. Two lofts advertised at the same size can differ by a third; the price is always compared on the Carrez area, then corrected for the volume.

Home or workshop: checking the permitted use

The first check on a loft is its permitted use under the planning rules. A workshop, a warehouse or an office becomes a home only through a change of use (changement de destination), declared or authorised by a permit, and sometimes subject to conditions: the rules of the zone, parking spaces, accessibility. A loft sold as a home while the premises remained a workshop under the planning rules, or whose works were never declared, is hard to finance, to insure and to resell, and exposes the buyer to regularisation, or even reinstatement.

In a co-ownership, the regulations come on top of the planning rules: they set the purpose of the building and of each lot, and may forbid living in a workshop lot, or business in a residential lot. An artist’s studio with mixed use allows you to live and work there; commercial premises converted without amending the regulations can be challenged. The documents to read before the offer are known, and Home Select gathers them.

• The building permit or the prior declaration of the change of use, and the declaration of completion of the works.
• The planning certificate, the zoning and the rules of the zone, for a change of use still to be made.
• The co-ownership regulations and the descriptive statement of division: purpose of the building and of the lot, amendments voted.
• The residence tax or the property tax, whose classification of the premises shows how the administration sees them.
• The insurance certificate of the current occupant and, where applicable, the commune’s opinion on the use.

Co-ownership, common parts and business neighbours

Most lofts are lots in a co-ownership born from the division of an industrial site: a courtyard, a passage, a hall shared by homes, workshops still in business, offices or shops. The service charges are sometimes heavy, factory glazing and roofs cost money to maintain, and the business neighbours are judged at every hour, deliveries and noise included. The co-ownership regulations, often recent, say what each owner may do with their lot and with the courtyard.

• The minutes of the last three general meetings and the works voted or under discussion: roof, glazing, courtyard, utilities.
• The co-ownership regulations, the purpose of the neighbouring lots and the activities permitted.
• The amount of the charges, the works fund and the overall technical survey if one exists.
• The lawful status of works done in the lot: mezzanine, relocated kitchen, opening in the façade or the roof.
• Access: an enclosed courtyard, a private passage, a goods lift or a factory staircase, and what that changes day to day.