To calculate a meaningful average from France’s DVF property records, first define the geography, dates, property type and area measure you want to compare. Then group rows into transactions, separate ordinary whole-property sales from complex or partial-right transfers, and calculate one comparable price or price-per-square-metre figure per sale before taking a mean or median. A DVF row is not necessarily a sale, so averaging rows directly can give transactions with more recorded components extra weight.
Choose the DVF data source and record its version
France’s Demandes de valeurs foncières (DVF) is a DGFiP dataset of declared property transactions. The downloadable open-data files and DGFiP’s authenticated “Rechercher des transactions immobilières” comparison service are distinct routes: do not assume that access rules or output conventions for the comparison service apply to bulk-data reuse.
The [DGFiP DVF dataset page](https://www.data.gouv.fr/fr/datasets/demandes-de-valeurs-foncieres/) describes five years of data and scheduled updates in April and October. It also warns that later updates can add transactions to earlier annual files. Record the file vintage and the date you downloaded it so another person can understand which dataset version produced your result.
The related geolocated DVF dataset lists fields including id_mutation, date_mutation, numero_disposition, nature_mutation, valeur_fonciere, code_type_local, type_local, surface_reelle_bati, Carrez lot surfaces and surface_terrain. Check the documentation for the exact file vintage you use before writing code against those fields.
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Coverage also matters. The dataset description excludes Alsace-Moselle and Mayotte; the authenticated comparison service separately names Bas-Rhin, Haut-Rhin, Moselle and Mayotte among its exclusions. Missing coverage is not evidence that no sales occurred. Do not compare regions without accounting for these limits. DVF’s open-data terms also prohibit enabling indirect re-identification or indexing records in external search engines.
Define what counts as a comparable sale
Before cleaning, state the question your calculation should answer. For example: “What was the average price per square metre for existing apartments sold in this commune from 2021 through 2025?” Fix the geography, period, property type, transferred rights and measure before selecting records; otherwise the average may combine sales that answer different questions.
The DGFiP comparison service is designed to return homogeneous comparison terms: simple transactions involving properties of the same nature and full ownership. Its guide says it does not return complex sales, gratuitous transfers or transactions involving rights other than full ownership. A complex transaction could, for example, combine a house with woodland or include multiple apartments. For a comparable-sales average, exclude such cases or analyze them separately and explain the rule. Do not silently mix them with ordinary whole-property sales.
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The comparison service has its own authentication, terms and specified personal-use conditions. Its terms also describe an indicative delay of about one month after publication before records are available through that service. These conditions apply to that service, not automatically to downloadable open-data files.
Group DVF rows into transactions
Do not treat each line as an independent sale. The geolocated field description says id_mutation is non-stable and is used to group rows. A mutation may have multiple rows or property components, so a row-level mean can overrepresent transactions recorded with more components.
- Inspect the grouping fields. Review
id_mutation,numero_disposition, dates, nature of mutation, property type and price fields together. Confirm how they behave in the specific vintage you downloaded. - Build a transaction-level working set. Group related rows using the documented identifiers and inspect repeated price and property information before deduplicating or summing anything.
- Apply a consistent component rule. Decide which components belong in the numerator and which contribute area to the denominator. Keep the rule consistent across transactions and record it with the result.
- Review unusual cases separately. Transactions with multiple properties, mixed property types or transferred rights that are not full ownership may not be comparable with a single ordinary sale.
There is no one deduplication expression established for every DVF vintage and transaction type. Validate a grouping rule against the relevant file documentation and actual transaction structures rather than assuming every repeated value should be kept or removed.
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Choose a price and an area definition
Decide whether you want an average total transaction price or an average price per square metre. These answer different questions. For a price-per-square-metre measure, pair each eligible transaction’s relevant price with a surface field that matches the property type and is available consistently. State how you handle missing or incomparable areas.
DGFiP’s comparison guide identifies the price retained in its service output as the price excluding tax, with exceptions for VAT transactions and some expropriation indemnities. Its legal sale information, including price and Carrez area, comes from property-registration records. Other descriptive information, such as useful area and year of construction, comes from owner-declared cadastral records and may not describe the property exactly as it stood at sale.
| Area measure | What it represents | Cleaning implication |
|---|---|---|
| Carrez area | Private area of a condominium lot as described in the notarial act. | Use it when it fits the comparison question and is consistently recorded for the sales being compared. |
| Cadastral useful area (surface utile) | A real-area measure derived from owner declarations and calculated by cadastral services. | Do not treat it as interchangeable with Carrez area; DGFiP notes the measures can disagree, and cadastral descriptions may differ from the property at sale. |
The right denominator depends on the question. Avoid combining different surface definitions in one price-per-square-metre calculation as though they measured the same thing.
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Calculate the mean and median at sale level
For a mean price per square metre comparable to the DGFiP comparison service’s method, first calculate one ratio for each selected sale, then take the arithmetic mean of those sale-level ratios:
sale price per m² = eligible sale price ÷ chosen comparable area
mean price per m² = sum of selected sales’ price-per-m² ratios ÷ number of selected sales
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- CONFIDENTLY AND EASILY SOLVE: Clients' financial questions whether they're buyers, sellers, investors or renters. Increase your perceived professionalism as a new agent, experienced broker or seasoned loan officer. Close more home sales and impress your clients with fast, accurate answers to all their real estate finance questions from PITI Payments to IRR, NPV and Cashflows
- DEDICATED BUYER QUALIFYING KEYS: Enter client's income, debt and expenses to pre-qualify them to only show properties they can afford. Include tax, insurance and mortgage insurance then compare loan options and payment solutions to give your client choices before they make an offer to buy
- FIGURE OUT THE RIGHT LOAN: For your client at the press of a button for jumbo, conventional, FHA/VA, or even 80:10:10 or 80:15:5 combo loans; check to see if ARMs or bi-weekly loans, quarterly payments or if interest-only payments are the answer; giving your client more choices; easily perform what if loan or TVM calculations find loan amount, term, interest or PITI or PI payments
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The DGFiP guide defines its mean as the sum of selected sales’ price-per-square-metre ratios divided by the number of selected sales. It defines the median by sorting the selected sales’ ratios: use the middle ratio for an odd number of sales, or the average of the two central ratios for an even number.
Keep the unit of averaging clear. The arithmetic mean of transaction totals is not the same as the mean price per square metre. Nor is the mean of sale-level ratios the same as dividing the combined price by combined area: the latter gives more influence to transactions with larger areas.
Report enough detail to make the result interpretable
Present the result with the choices that determine what it means, not as a standalone “average property price.” Include:
- Geography and period covered, plus any coverage exclusions that affect the area.
- Property type and the kinds of rights transferred that were included.
- Whether the result is a transaction-total price or price per square metre.
- The area field used, treatment of missing areas, and component rule for multi-row transactions.
- Filtering rules, number of selected transactions, and whether you report a mean, median or both.
- DVF file vintage and download date.
DGFiP describes its comparison application as a tool to help estimate a property, not a finished valuation. Its guide says the returned information should be subject to expertise and comparative analysis. An area-level mean or median summarizes selected transactions; it does not by itself establish the value of a particular property, whose own characteristics matter.
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