Côte d’Azur and Provence
Seafront villas, bastides and private mansions: the two tightest territories in the South, where off-market is the norm on fine addresses.
Find your second home without travelling 40 times
A second home plays out on opaque local markets, hundreds of kilometres from your daily life. Home Select hunts on the ground, checks every property and only takes you to the essential: three viewings on average, not forty.
- 45 days
- average between the mandate and the accepted offer
- 6%
- average negotiation obtained off the seller price
- 15,000
- professional partners, surfacing properties before they are listed
Why a second home is a different kind of purchase
An opaque local market, impossible to visit from afar
Every resort, every coastline has its networks, its real prices, its technical traps that no listing mentions. Alone: endless weekend viewings, or worse, buying remotely from photos. The hunt relocates the work: monitoring, shortlisting and viewings are done for you.
Rare properties, often off-market
The fine Bassin villas, village chalets and Breton sea views sell massively without a listing, between families and insiders. Our network of 15,000 partners surfaces these properties before publication.
Our method applied to second homes
The framing takes the real usage into account: weekends or long stays, regulated rental, transmission. The brief follows, market by market.
The hunt happens on the ground: the local network surfaces properties, every file passes a technical audit (seaside buildings, resort co-ownerships, servitudes) before any viewing.
The negotiation, finally, accounts for seasonality: the best windows are often out of season, when sellers come back to reality.
The markets where we hunt
Alps: Megève, Courchevel, Chamonix
Prestige chalets and apartments in the great Northern resorts, where value plays on precise technical criteria.
Basque Country and Atlantic Coast
Basque villas, the Bassin d’Arcachon, the île de Ré: private-agreement markets where the buying window opens months before summer.
Normandy and Brittany
The Côte Fleurie two hours from Paris, the Morbihan sea views: the two weekend coastlines Parisians know best.
Micro-markets
City by city, what you are really buying
Every market has its rules, its micro-markets and its seasonality. Here, for each city, is the property a second home is looking for. The city page goes further, with its figures from the DVF vintage and its neighbourhoods.
Provence
- Aix-en-Provence As a second home, Aix sits between two worlds: a characterful flat in the Mazarin quarter, locked up in three minutes and reopened at Easter, or a bastide in the Aix countryside, which needs a gardener, a maintained pool and someone on the ground.
- Marseille A Marseille pied-à-terre is bought for the sea ten minutes away and the airport at thirty.
- Cassis This is the primary vocation of the Cassis market: a house in the village or on the heights, used from April to October.
- La Ciotat Sand beaches in the centre, a characterful old port and the Mugel calanque: La Ciotat offers the Provence coast without the entry ticket of Cassis.
- Avignon A townhouse inside the walls or a house in Villeneuve-lès-Avignon: the papal city is the gateway to the Luberon and the Alpilles, 2 hr 40 from Paris by TGV, which makes a second home genuinely usable at weekends.
- Bandol This is the heart of the Bandol market: a sea-view villa on the south-facing hills, or a flat in the centre within walking distance of the port.
- Sanary-sur-Mer A village house in the old centre, a sea-view flat by the port, or a villa on the heights and at Portissol: Sanary covers all three uses.
- Saint-Cyr-sur-Mer This is the vocation of the market: a villa in the vineyard hills or a house near the Les Lecques seafront, for summer and school holidays.
Côte d’Azur
- Nice A Nice pied-à-terre is chosen on three criteria: the view, the floor and the lift.
- Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat This is almost the sole vocation of the peninsula: a villa with a garden between two bays, for summer and the shoulder seasons.
- Cannes La Croisette and the Banane for the sea-view flat, La Californie and Super Cannes for the villa with garden and pool.
- Antibes Cap d’Antibes for the discreet property under the pines, old Antibes for the town house inside the ramparts, Juan-les-Pins for the lively seafront: three very different uses.
- Saint-Tropez This is the whole market: Les Parcs de Saint-Tropez, the village and La Ponche, the hills of Ramatuelle and Gassin.
Alps
- Megève This is the whole market: a chalet on Mont d’Arbois or Rochebrune, a flat a step from the village.
- Courchevel Le Jardin Alpin and Les Chenus for the ski-in ski-out chalet, Courchevel Village and Le Praz for character at more measured values.
- Chamonix From Les Praz to Le Lavancher, characterful chalets are rare and hotly contested.
Rhône-Alpes
- Lyon A Lyon pied-à-terre is bought for the city itself: Ainay, the Presqu’île, the 6th around the Parc de la Tête d’Or.
- Annecy The lake is the market: the eastern shore, from Veyrier to Menthon and Talloires, forms the summit of French lakeside addresses.
- Évian-les-Bains Belle époque villas, terraced grounds above the lake, flats with a view: Évian is a second-home market more discreet than the Swiss shore, hunted through networks.
Basque Country
- Biarritz A neo-Basque villa, an Art Deco flat, an ocean view: Biarritz sells light first, and walking distance to the beach.
- Saint-Jean-de-Luz A shipowner’s house in the historic centre, a villa at Sainte-Barbe facing the ocean, a surf address at Acotz: three uses, three markets.
Atlantic Coast
- Bordeaux A flat in the Triangle d’Or or a merchant’s house in Les Chartrons: Bordeaux is an urban second home, two hours from Paris.
- Arcachon This is the vocation of the market: a villa in the Ville d’Hiver, a flat on the bay front, a house at Le Moulleau or Le Pyla.
- Cap Ferret This is the entire market: a villa under the pines at the point, an oyster farmer’s house at Le Canon or L’Herbe, an ocean address at Le Truc Vert.
- La Rochelle A shipowner’s house inside the walls, a house in La Genette, a flat facing the old port: La Rochelle offers character without isolation, with the Île de Ré twenty minutes away.
- Île de Ré This is the essence of the market: a village house in Saint-Martin, Ars, La Flotte or Les Portes, each with its own codes and its own lanes.
Occitanie
- Montpellier A townhouse in the Écusson or a flat in Les Arceaux, with the sea a quarter of an hour away: Montpellier lends itself to the urban second home, very different from the coastal one.
- Toulouse Toulouse is a main-residence market more than a second-home one, but the townhouse in Les Carmes or the fine floor overlooking the Garonne do find buyers who come for a few weeks a year.
- Collioure This is the vocation of the market: a fisherman’s house in Le Mouré or Le Faubourg, for summer and the shoulder seasons.
Normandy
- Deauville This is the primary vocation of the market: a villa in the golden triangle, a flat facing the sea, a house in Trouville.
- Honfleur A characterful house near the Vieux-Bassin, an address on the Côte de Grâce or a flat in the upper town: Honfleur is lived in weekends all year, two hours from Paris.
Brittany
- Vannes The gulf is the market: Arradon, Baden, the Île-aux-Moines, the Rhuys peninsula.
Fees
Two offers, paid on success
- 2.5% of the net purchase price
- Exclusive offer The full service, at every budget. Minimum €10,000 incl. VAT.
- 1.5% of the net purchase price
- Confidential offer The same service, dedicated to off-market properties. Reserved for projects of €2m and above.
Home Select is paid 100% on success: nothing is due until you have bought.
Frequently asked questions
What we are asked first
Do you hunt second homes beyond your listed cities?
Yes: each of our covered areas has its page, and any other city is handled tailor-made with the same method and network. Île-de-France is served by our dedicated website, homeselect.paris.
Do I have to travel for the viewings?
No: most of our second-home clients live in Paris or abroad. We shortlist, visit and document; you only come for the retained properties, three on average.
What are your fees ?
Home Select 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. Home Select is paid on success only: nothing is due until you have bought.
What happens next
- A property finder reads your request and answers within one working day.
- A first confidential conversation: how you will use the property, the real budget, the non-negotiable criteria, the timing.
- A written brief, and a search started within the week. Nothing is due until you have bought.
Your second-home project
A first confidential conversation, with no commitment. A property finder answers within one working day.
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- 1 200+
- Buyers guided
- 100 %
- On success, nothing upfront
Takes 1 minute, free and no commitment.
Or call us directly on 01 78 76 78 10
