Alsace Property Prices: Why DVF Shows Nothing and Where to Look
You open the government's DVF map, zoom in on Strasbourg or Colmar, and the map is empty. No sales, no prices. It is not a bug, and it is not going to be fixed next month. Here is why, and where owners in Alsace actually find what homes sell for.
Why Alsace is missing from DVF
DVF (Demandes de valeurs foncières) is the open dataset of property sales published by the French tax administration. It covers almost the whole country — but not the Bas-Rhin, the Haut-Rhin or the Moselle (Mayotte is missing too).
The reason is local law. In Alsace-Moselle, property is registered in the Livre foncier, a land register kept by the courts, not in the tax administration's files that feed DVF. The tax administration simply does not hold these sales, and the Livre foncier data are not published as open data. The official DVF FAQ says so in one line.
The practical consequence: any website, app or API that relies only on DVF has the same blank spot over Alsace. If a tool shows you "recent sales" for a village near Sélestat, check where its data come from.
Where to find real sale prices
1. The notaries' price map
French notaries keep their own sales database (PERVAL), and it does include Alsace. Their public map at immobilier.notaires.fr gives median prices per m² for apartments, houses and land by department and town, together with the number of sales behind each figure. This is the closest thing to DVF that exists for Alsace.
2. The quarterly reports of the Alsace-Moselle notaries
The notaries of Alsace-Moselle publish market reports for Strasbourg, Colmar, Mulhouse and the departments: median prices, typical surfaces and the change over one year. They leave out atypical sales (lofts, very large properties, purchases by property dealers), so the medians describe ordinary homes.
3. The Livre foncier itself
For one specific property — its owners, rights, mortgages and past deeds — the source is the Livre foncier, run online through the AMALFI system. Notaries and other authorised professionals consult it directly; the public can request information and copies, for a fee (the current list is in the services and prices document). It answers "what happened to this house", not "what is the market doing".
4. Online estimators
The big estimation sites do show figures for Strasbourg and Colmar, but they are models built from listings and other sources, not a register of completed sales. Use them as a range, not as a price.
5. A valuation by a notary or a local agent
When the number matters — selling, a succession, a divorce, a tax return — ask for an avis de valeur. A notary or an agent who sells in the street next to yours will know things no map shows: the state of the building, the copropriété's finances, the noise from the tram.
Reading the figures without fooling yourself
- Compare like with like. An old apartment in the Neustadt and a new-build in Schiltigheim are different markets, even a few kilometres apart.
- Look at the number of sales. A median built on eight sales in a small village moves a lot from one quarter to the next.
- A median is not your home. Floor, condition, energy rating (DPE) and outdoor space easily move a price by 15–20% either way.
How we help
Many of our clients own a home in Alsace and live somewhere else. When they need a figure, we get the valuation organised with a local notary or agent, gather the documents (diagnostics, copropriété papers, Livre foncier extracts) and keep the property ready for viewings. If that sounds useful, get in touch and tell us about the property.