Buying a sea-view property in Collioure

Le Mouré and the old centre, between the church and the royal castle, look at the bay from close by: colourful fishermen’s houses, stepped lanes, the sea at the end of the street. It is the rarest market on the Côte Vermeille, where sales are counted in single units each year; the view is won on an upper floor or a terrace, almost never with parking. Le Faubourg, on the far bank of the Douy, lines up village houses and artists’ studios: the view there is decided street by street, the bay for some houses, a glimpse or nothing for others.

The heights and the vineyard hold the plunging views: villas and houses among the terraced vines and the low schist walls, the whole bay below, the calm ten minutes from the harbour. The market there is confidential, almost entirely by private sale. Port-Vendres, five minutes away, sells the sea around a port that lives all year round. Further on, the Côte Vermeille extends the search: Banyuls-sur-Mer, Cerbère, Le Racou.

A view over the bay is paid above the rest of the village, and that gap is justified only if the view holds. The traps are known: the angle between two roofs that closes, the overlooking from a taller neighbouring house, the exposure, which decides the sun on the terrace and its shelter from the tramontane, the noise of the quays in summer, the corrosion of railings and joinery under the salt spray. In the small co-ownerships of the centre, run on old rules and sometimes without a professional managing agent, the minutes say who maintains the façade, the roof and the staircase.

The old centre is protected, around the royal castle, a listed historic monument: a view promised by works, an enlarged window, a new terrace or an added storey, is not a view acquired. On the heights, the question is what may grow or be built below and, in a zone exposed to fire, the compulsory brush clearance within 50 m of the buildings. Everywhere, the loi Littoral protects the 100 m strip outside built-up areas.

Home Select works Collioure remotely, for the buyer’s sole account. The brief is set by video call or by phone: which view, from which rooms, for what use, with or without a car. Home Select then steers the search from its management, with its network of 15,000 partners, on listings as well as off-market, where most of the village’s houses are sold. Home Select receives more than 100 off-market properties every day and monitors 1,700 listing sites.

Each shortlisted property is qualified on documents, then pre-viewed by video, a visit steered by Home Select with the seller’s agent: window by window, camera turned to the bay and then to the sides, to see the angle, the overlooking and what sticks up below. The price is set against comparable DVF 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 preliminary contract and coordinates the notaire up to completion. Founded in 2011, Home Select has accompanied more than 1,200 buyers, 30% of them expatriates or international; its fees are due 100% on success, nothing before completion.