Features of a Good Real Estate Website to Find Your Home in France
Reliability and Security
Choose websites that are known for their seriousness, to avoid scams. Portals that verify listings or mostly work with professionals inspire more confidence. On generalist platforms open to everyone, you need to be extra vigilant (never pay a deposit without guarantees, be wary of offers that seem too good to be true, etc.).
Quality and Recency of Listings
Favour websites where listings are detailed, updated often, and ideally checked. Complete descriptions with photos and accurate information help you picture yourself in the property and reduce the risk of outdated or misleading information.
Number of Listings Available
A large number of listings increases your chances of finding the perfect property. The most popular portals or aggregators often list hundreds of thousands of properties, or even more, across the entire market.
However, quantity is not everything: a smaller site that targets a specific market segment (for example, holiday homes, luxury properties, or new builds) may be much more relevant.
By filtering listings to keep only those truly suitable for your search, these specialized real estate portals save you time and prevent you from browsing through hundreds of irrelevant results.
Ergonomics and Navigation
A good real estate portal is recognized by the quality of its user experience. Beyond a clear and pleasant design, it’s the easy access to information and the logic of navigation that make the difference.
The best sites offer an intuitive interface, where every filter, map, and photo is designed to help the user quickly get their bearings. The objective: to allow everyone to find a property effortlessly, in just a few clicks.
Fluid navigation, well-designed search filters, and instant results greatly improve user comfort. Whether on mobile or computer, the most ergonomic platforms retain the same clarity and speedy display, so you can browse listings wherever you are.
Advanced Search Features
The most advanced real estate portals now offer tools designed to make searching simpler and more personal.
In addition to classic filters (price, area, number of rooms, location), some sites go further with drawn areas directly on the map, ideal for targeting a precise sector—a major advantage for those who already know the region where they want to buy.
It is also possible to search around a point of interest, a particularly useful feature to refine your project by lifestyle rather than just geography.
Concretely, the user can indicate a key place that matters to them—for example a beach, a high-speed train station, an international school, a typical village, or even a specific nature site—and the portal will automatically display properties located within a set radius of that point.
This approach changes the search logic: instead of browsing by municipality or department, you start from your lifestyle and personal priorities.
A buyer can thus look for « a house less than 15 minutes from a station serving Paris, » « an apartment right by the Mediterranean coastline, » or « a villa near a golf course or marina. »
Some portals go even further, offering the ability to combine several points of interest—for example, searching for a property both close to an airport and less than 10 km from the sea.
Adaptation to Your Buyer Profile
Lastly, choose a portal suited to your specific search. Some sites are better for older properties or private sales, while others excel in new builds or homes sold by agencies.
Likewise, a portal may be oriented towards holiday homes or foreign buyers (available languages, dedicated support, automatic price conversion in the user’s currency), which can be crucial if you are a non-resident or seeking a holiday home.
It’s also worth noting that some portals are real experts in particular regions: they concentrate a large share of their listings in specific areas, such as the French Riviera, Dordogne, the Alps, or Brittany.
This regional specialisation makes it easier to find well-ranked properties, more detailed local information, and professional contacts who know the local market perfectly. This is invaluable if you’ve already got a favourite region or precise area for your property project.
With these criteria in mind, let’s compare the main real estate portals in France and their special features.
Comparison of the Main Real Estate Portals in France
| Criteria | Green-Acres | SeLoger | Leboncoin | Vizzit |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Number of listings available | ≈80,000 | ≈800,000 | ≈800,000 | ≈1,700,000 (aggregated) |
| Automatic translation of listings | ✅ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ |
| Currency converter for foreign buyers | ✅ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ |
| Multilingual customer support for international buyers | ✅ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ |
| Search by point of interest | ✅ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ |
| Ability to draw a search area on the map | ✅ | ✅ | ❌ | ✅ |
| Personalised alerts for new listings | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Section dedicated to luxury properties | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Section dedicated to new builds | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Online loan estimation | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| iOS / Android mobile app | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
Green-Acres
Green-Acres stands out as a unique real estate portal, specializing in second homes and international buyers looking for a house in France.
Unlike generalist platforms that focus on high volume, Green-Acres prioritizes quality and the relevance of listings: around 80,000 carefully selected properties, often in the most sought-after regions like Provence, the French Riviera, Dordogne or Brittany.
Every listing is clear, detailed and illustrated with quality photos, making it a trusted platform where reliability comes before quantity.
The user experience is smooth and intuitive, with a clear design and multilingual navigation designed for foreign buyers. The search tools go far beyond simple price or area filters: you can draw an area on the map, search around a point of interest (beach, train station, international school, golf course…) or get personalized alerts as soon as a new property matching your criteria appears.
Green-Acres also integrates rare features, such as automatic translation of listings into 29 languages and price conversion to the user’s currency, making the search accessible to everyone, wherever they are.
With multilingual customer support and a clear international focus, Green-Acres offers an experience that is simple, reliable and personalized. It’s the ideal portal for those searching for a charming home in France.
Green-Acres is a leading portal for international buyers in search of second homes in France and Europe. The site has an international vocation: it is available in 29 languages, in order to make the search process easier for non-French speakers.
Vizzit
Vizzit is an innovative real estate portal which stands out due to its ability to centralise, in real-time, all the listings published by French real estate agencies.
Truly a search engine for real estate, the site aggregates more than 1.7 million listings, offering a complete overview of the market without the user having to browse several platforms.
This approach ensures unique comprehensiveness while eliminating duplicates and outdated listings thanks to an intelligent detection algorithm.
The user experience is clear, fast, and designed for efficiency: navigation is done via an interactive map, on which it is possible to draw a custom area to limit the search to a specific sector.
Vizzit also offers ultra-responsive alerts, which notify users as soon as a new property matching their criteria goes online—a major advantage in tight markets where the best deals go quickly.
Completely free for individuals, Vizzit offers a high level of reliability and total transparency: every listing links back to the originating agency’s website, with no middlemen or intrusive advertising.
With its technological approach, responsiveness and national coverage, Vizzit has established itself as one of the most comprehensive tools for those who want access to the entire French property market in one place, whether they’re looking for an older property, a new build, or a main residence.
