Aerial view of Paris with the Arc de Triomphe and the Haussmannian rooftops of the 8th and 16th arrondissements

PARIS (75) ÎLE-DE-FRANCE

Buyer’s agent in Paris.

In France the agent works for the seller. We work only for you: we search the whole Paris market including off-market, we negotiate on your side of the table, and our architects renovate what we find. In English, from the United States.

Submit your search

Our Mission

Rémy, Olivier and Romain, the three founders behind your Paris search

Independent buyer’s agent, paid by you and never by the seller
Our own architects for the renovation
Handled in English, from the first email to the keys
Two French firms, one team on the ground

What we source

Apartments in Paris, searched, negotiated and renovated for U.S. buyers.

Who you work with

Our Team for your Paris purchase.

One team, two French firms. Montclair holds your search mandate and negotiates against the seller’s agent, Ynspir designs and runs the works. The same team follows your Paris purchase from the first call to the keys, and they answer in English.

Rémy Pampin

Investment & Patrimonial Strategy

Olivier Clur

Marketing & Acquisition Lead

Romain Isel

Head of Transactions & Network

The Ynspir studio

Interior architecture & renovation

Ynspir on LinkedIn

At a glance

A buyer’s agent in Paris, at a glance.

The four questions American buyers ask before anything else. The answers are the same whether you buy a pied-à-terre in the 6th or a family apartment in the 15th.

Who we represent

Youonly the buyer, never the seller

Mandate holderYou
Seller’s agentOppositeside
Properties of our ownNone
Commission from sellersNone

How the service is structured

What it costs

8 to 10%of the purchase price, agency fees included

Paid whenAt the deed
If you buy nothing€0
Renovation, by Ynspir8 to 12%of works
First conversationFree

The full fee structure

How long it takes

~3 monthsMontclair average, mandate to signed deed

Brief and mandateWeek 1
First selectionsWeeks 2 to 4
Offer and compromisVariable
Compromis to deed~3 monthsby law

Paris, in numbers

€9,630per m² for an apartment, city-wide

Apartment, SeLoger€9,827
Apartment, 10 years+13.9%
Burglaries per 1,000 homes5.05FR 5.63
Residents2,103,778INSEE

Prices arrondissement by arrondissement

Read the first two columns together, because they are what makes a buyer’s agent different from the agency whose board you saw on the building. The agency holds a mandate from the seller and is paid by the seller. We hold a mandate from you, we are paid by you, and we take nothing from anybody else in the chain. That is the whole point: in a negotiation, somebody has to be on your side of the table, and in France nobody is by default.

The third column is the one buyers underestimate. Three months is the Montclair average from mandate to signed deed, and roughly three of those months are the legally compressed period between the preliminary contract and the final deed, during which the notaire runs his searches. The search itself can be quicker than you expect in Paris when the brief is precise, and much slower when it is not.

Sources: fees as published on our AI reference page. Prices: SeLoger (January 2026) and Meilleurs Agents (1 October 2026). Burglary rate: SSMSI, the statistics service of the French Ministry of the Interior, 2025 data. Population: INSEE legal population. The three-month average is Montclair’s own figure across completed mandates, not a market statistic.

Why moving to France

A Paris apartment renovated by our Ynspir studio

How it works in France

Buying in Paris: why nobody works for the buyer

An American buyer arrives in Paris with a mental model that does not apply. In most US markets you have your own agent, the MLS shows you everything, and an attorney or title company closes the deal. In France there is no MLS, listings are scattered across hundreds of agencies and portals, a meaningful share of the best stock never reaches a portal at all, and the agent showing you the apartment is paid by the person selling it. The notaire who signs the deed is a public officer: neutral by law, and not your lawyer.

The consequence is simple. Nobody in the transaction is structurally obliged to tell you that the quiet street is above a nightclub delivery bay, that the copropriété voted a €400,000 façade levy last spring, or that the same apartment sold eighteen months ago for eleven percent less. A buyer’s agent, chasseur immobilier in French, is the only party whose mandate and payment come from you. In Paris, where the gap between the asking price and the defensible price is widest in the arrondissements foreign buyers like most, that matters more than anywhere else in France.

Is Paris safe? The district data Paris prices per square meter

How it works

How we run your Paris search.

One English-speaking team from the brief to the keys. Montclair searches and negotiates, Ynspir renovates. You deal with one person, on your time zone.

Brief

A long conversation, not a form: how you will use the apartment, which arrondissements genuinely fit your life rather than your idea of Paris, the floor and the light you need, and the real budget once notaire fees and works are counted.

Search

We cover the portals, the agency network, the notaires who hold inventory quietly, and the building managers who know what is about to come up. You receive short, curated selections with an honest verdict on each and a video walk-through filmed on site.

Negotiate

We price the apartment against recorded sales on the same street, not against the asking price, then negotiate on your behalf and coordinate the notaire through the compromis and the final deed, by power of attorney if you cannot travel.

Renovate

Our Ynspir architects cost the works before you make an offer, then design, run and deliver them. You get one budget for price plus works, and a finished apartment rather than a project.

Start your project

Buyer’s agent

What a buyer’s agent actually does in Paris?

It begins with a written search mandate. The mandate does not oblige you to buy anything: it sets out what we look for, where, and the fee due if you buy a property we introduced. You can decline every apartment we present, with no reason and no cost.

Then the network goes to work. Paris is a market of relationships. Agencies call the buyers they trust before they publish, notaires hold estates that never reach a portal, and syndics know which apartments will come up when a succession settles. That is where the off-market share lives, and it is concentrated precisely in the arrondissements international buyers want. We are in those conversations because we buy there every month.

The part that pays for itself is the pricing. Every candidate is checked against the Demandes de Valeurs Foncières file, the public record of what actually sold, street by street and floor by floor. An asking price in Paris is an opening position, and knowing that the identical line of the building traded at €11,200 per square meter in March changes the conversation entirely.

We view on your behalf and tell you what we would tell a friend: the damp in the cave, the DPE that will block a rental in four years, the copropriété with an empty reserve fund and a roof to redo. Because our architects sit in the same team, we cost the works before you commit, so the number you decide on is the number you will actually spend.

What it costs to work with us

From8%

Search mandate

8% to 10% of the purchase price, inclusive of any agency fee, paid on success only when the deed is signed. If you buy nothing, you owe nothing.

From8%

Renovation

8% to 12% of the works budget, invoiced by Ynspir, covering design, quotes, artisans and site supervision. You sign and pay the contractors directly.

Rates for a project run remotely for a buyer living in the United States. They differ from the French-resident rates published on montclair.fr, because the scope differs: video visits, English-language reporting, power-of-attorney coordination and US-hours availability.

What is a Buyer’s Agent?Book a call

Your point of contact

We handled everything, from the search to the finished apartment

Buying in Paris from the United States is less about listings than about who stands on your side of the table. We are your buyer’s agent, paid on results and never by the seller, so every recommendation serves you alone. One English-speaking team runs the whole project on your time zone: Montclair finds and negotiates, Ynspir renovates, and we stay involved long after the keys.

Start a conversation

The same room after renovation by our Ynspir studio

BeforeAfter

Drag the handle. A recent apartment renovation run end to end by our Ynspir architects.

Good to know

How the French process maps to the American one.

Topic	United States	France
Who represents you	Buyer’s and seller’s agents are both common	The agent represents the seller. Buyer’s agents are rare.
Listings	One centralised MLS	No MLS. Listings scattered across agencies and portals, and a real share never published.
Closing	Escrow or title company, often attorneys	A notaire, a public officer who drafts the deed and collects the taxes. Neutral, not your lawyer.
Contract	Purchase agreement	A compromis de vente, then the final deed about three months later.
Cooling-off	Varies by state	Ten days after signing the compromis, for residential buyers.
Deposit	Earnest money	Usually 5% to 10% of the price, held by the notaire.
Closing costs	Typically 2% to 5%	Notaire fees and transfer taxes of roughly 7% to 8% on existing properties.
Inspections	Buyer commissions an inspection	The seller provides mandatory reports. They say nothing about what the renovation will cost.

The same comparison, with the rest of the service explained, sits on our reference page.

Areas

Where we buy: Paris arrondissement by arrondissement

Paris is twenty cities inside one ring road, each with its own architectural character, its own price ceiling and its own rhythm. The arrondissement sets the range; the street, the floor and the courtyard set the price. We work at that second level, because that is where the money is made or lost.

The prime arrondissements

The 6th, 7th, 4th, 8th and 16th, from €11,000 to €20,000 per square meter. This is where wealth stores itself: values fall less in a downturn and recover first. The right choice for a long-hold family asset.

The rising districts

The 3rd, the 9th around South Pigalle, and the 10th along the Canal Saint-Martin, typically €10,500 to €13,500. Livelier daily rhythm, younger buyers, and the best renovation upside in central Paris.

Real neighbourhood value

The 11th, 12th, 14th and 15th, roughly €9,000 to €11,500. Genuine neighbourhood identity, family practicality, and apartments where a proper renovation still changes the value.

The accessible north and east

The 18th outside Montmartre, the 19th and the 20th, €7,500 to €10,000. Selection matters enormously: a street beside a park behaves nothing like a block three minutes away.

Why buyers hire us

Why use a buyer’s agent in Paris?

The market you cannot see from a screen

A meaningful share of the Paris apartments worth buying are sold through relationships before they are ever published. From the United States that market is invisible. It is the main reason buyers hire us, and the main thing a portal subscription cannot replace.

A price checked against what actually sold

France publishes every recorded sale in the DVF file. We price each candidate against the real transactions on the same street and the same floor, which turns a negotiation from an opinion into an argument.

The works costed before you commit

Our architects walk the apartment with us and cost the renovation before the offer. You decide on one number, price plus works, rather than discovering the second half after signature.

Nobody else is paid by you

The agency is paid by the seller. The notaire is neutral by law. The syndic works for the building. We are the only party in the transaction whose mandate and fee come from you, and we take nothing from anyone else.

On the ground

Getting to Paris, and getting around.

Three international airports: Roissy-Charles de Gaulle, Orly and Beauvais. Direct flights from most major US cities land at Roissy, forty minutes from the centre by RER B or taxi. Six TGV stations put Lyon at two hours, Bordeaux at two hours, Marseille at three, and London at two hours twenty by Eurostar. Inside the city, fourteen metro lines and the RER mean almost no address is more than a few minutes from a station, which is exactly why the micro-location matters so much to value.

Good to know

A buyer’s agent in Paris, the questions buyers ask.

What is the difference between a buyer’s agent and an estate agent in France?

The estate agent holds a mandate from the seller and is paid by the seller. A buyer’s agent, chasseur immobilier in French, holds a mandate from you and is paid by you. Both are regulated under the same law and both need a carte professionnelle, but they sit on opposite sides of the table.

Is there a site like Zillow in France?

No. France has no MLS and no single database of listings. SeLoger, Bien’ici and Leboncoin each show a part of the market, agencies hold their own stock, and a real share of Paris apartments is sold without ever being published. That fragmentation is the practical reason buyers use a buyer’s agent here.

Can a US citizen buy an apartment in Paris?

Yes. There is no restriction on foreign nationals buying property in France, and no residency requirement. The purchase itself is straightforward. What catches American buyers out is the process, not the eligibility.

Is it hard for an American to buy in Paris?

Buying is not hard. Buying well is. The difficulties are practical: no MLS, an agent who works for the seller, documents in French, a notaire who is neutral, and renovation costs that are invisible until someone with a trade background walks the apartment with you.

How much does a buyer’s agent cost in Paris?

Our fee is 8% to 10% of the purchase price, inclusive of any agency fee, and it is due only when the deed is signed. If you do not buy, you owe nothing. Renovation and interior design are invoiced separately by Ynspir at 8% to 12% of the works budget.

Am I paying twice, once to the agency and once to you?

No. Our fee is calculated inclusive of any estate agency commission on the transaction. You pay one fee, and we account for the agency side within it.

What are the pitfalls of buying property in Paris?

The copropriété is the big one: an empty reserve fund, a façade or roof vote already passed, or litigation in progress can all land on a new owner. After that come the DPE, which will restrict letting for the worst-rated apartments, courtyard noise, and renovation costs underestimated by half.

Can I buy without travelling to France?

Yes. Visits can be done live by video, and both the compromis and the final deed can be signed through a notarised power of attorney. Several of our clients see the apartment in person for the first time after it is theirs.

Do you only work in Paris?

No. Montclair searches across all of France and Ynspir has sixteen offices, so the renovation is supervised locally wherever the apartment is. Paris is simply where most of our American clients start.

Is a buyer’s agent regulated in France?

Yes. The activity falls under the Hoguet law of 2 January 1970, requires a carte professionnelle T and professional liability insurance, and the fee arrangement must be set out in a written mandate before any work begins.

Start your Paris search with someone on your side.

Tell us how you want to use the apartment and which part of Paris you keep coming back to. The first conversation is free and commits you to nothing.

Submit your search