Buying a sea-view property in Biarritz

The Côte des Basques and Beaurivage carry the full ocean view: the cliff above the beach, the villas clinging to it, the surf spirit of the town, the casino and the Rocher de la Vierge. It is the Biarritz address par excellence, and the most contested: the front line there is extremely rare, and the real exposure and the accesses are checked before anything else. Impératrice, Saint-Charles and Les Halles, the heart of the prestige, sit by the Grande Plage and the Hôtel du Palais: the view there is paid at the top of the market, when it exists.

Le Braou and Aguiléra, around the golf du Phare and the tennis courts, raise the family villas, from the thirties to the contemporary ones: the view is more distant there, and family use comes first. Anglet and Chiberta stretch the estate between golf, pine forest and ocean: villas in the green, the ocean on foot, the view filtered through pines. Bidart and Guéthary, on the Basque corniche, line up the ocean-view villas and the character houses of the village: a confidential market, where fine addresses circulate among insiders, often without a listing.

A view is paid above the rest of the town, and the gap is only justified if the view holds. The traps are well known: the angle between two villas closing in, the vis-à-vis of a neighbouring building, the exposure deciding the hours of sun on the terrace, the noise of the seafront in summer. Under the sea spray, joinery, railings and waterproofing age faster: maintenance cycles are shorter there and are provided for from the offer onwards, and the maintenance log of the seafront co-ownerships tells what the sea air has already cost.

On the Côte des Basques, the cliff is part of the survey: the coastal risk prevention plan and the history of the stabilisation works are read before the offer, like the condition of the roofs and the extensions of the neo-Basque villas, whose works are priced before any commitment. And along the whole coast, the loi Littoral protects a band of one hundred metres outside built-up areas, where nothing is built: a protection for the view, a limit for extension projects.

Home Select works Biarritz remotely, for the buyer alone. The brief is set by video call or by telephone: which view, from which rooms, for what use. The management of Home Select then steers the search with its network of 15,000 partners, on the listings as well as off-market: Home Select receives more than 100 off-market properties every day and watches 1,700 listing sites.

Each retained property goes through a qualification on paper, then a video pre-viewing steered by Home Select with the seller’s agent: window by window, the camera turned to the horizon then to the sides, to see the angle, the vis-à-vis and what stands below. The price is then checked against comparable sales, the view being precisely what averages do not measure. You travel only for the decisive viewings, grouped into a single trip; Home Select negotiates, secures the offer and coordinates the notaire to completion. Home Select, founded in 2011, has assisted more than 1,200 buyers, 30% of them expatriates or international clients; its fees are due 100% on success, nothing before completion.