Second home in Villefranche-sur-Mer: the guide

Three uses, three districts. The old town and the beachfront give walkable life: character apartments in the painted lanes, sometimes with a rooftop terrace, the chapelle Saint-Pierre decorated by Cocteau as a neighbour, the Marinières beach at the end of the street. It is the simplest second address to manage, if you accept the age of the buildings and parking outside the centre. La Darse and the slopes give the village house with a garden, around the fishing harbour: a gentle, family district where the car becomes almost optional.

The hills above the bay and the corniche and the villas give space, a garden and the plunging view: the family villa, quiet all year, the car for everything, and a presence to organise when it is closed. In Villefranche, the view over the bay is a price factor on its own: two apartments of the same size do not trade at the same level depending on whether they open onto the bay or onto the hill. That view is checked standing in the room, never on the listing’s photograph.

The real question of a second home is the time between stays: who keeps watch, who airs the rooms, who tends the garden? In the old town and along the bay, salt air works the façades and damp lies in wait for houses set against the hill: an apartment manages from afar if the co-ownership is well run, and the minutes say what was voted and what you will pay in three years’ time. In the hills and on the corniche, a villa asks for a gardener, a pool kept up when there is one, and someone who calls by: the upkeep of a coastal house is continuous.

Two rules are read before the offer. If the plot lies in a zone exposed to fire, clearing the undergrowth is compulsory within fifty metres of the buildings, year after year. If the house is not connected to mains drainage, the non-collective sanitation is inspected by the SPANC, and a non-compliant installation is costed before buying, like the works, to be costed before the offer. Home Select builds this logic of absence into the selection from the start: real charges, caretaker or not, access, exposure, what the house costs when you are not there.

The market picks up in spring and at the September rentrée, but properties with a view of the bay appear as estates are settled and households move, with no calendar: the watch has to be continuous. The purchase is prepared in reverse: a brief by video call or by telephone; qualification of the properties on documents, diagnostics, minutes, charges; video pre-viewings, steered by Home Select with the seller’s agent, window by window, windows open, to judge the view and the noise of the railway line; then a single trip for the decisive viewings, grouped together.

The price is set against comparable sales in the DVF survey, negotiation and securing the sale agreement follow, the notary is coordinated, and a power of attorney lets you sign the deed without coming back. The search is steered by Home Select’s management, with its network of 15,000 partners: on the corniche, where sales almost always happen off-listing, it is that network that opens doors. Home Select’s fees are due 100% on success, nothing before the deed.