France Property Project Cockpit – buy, renovate, rent (English edition)

Buy, renovate or build in France, handle the paperwork in the right order, then let without nasty surprises: a workbook that calculates everything and a guide that explains everything, for English-speaking buyers and small investors in France.

The France Property Project Cockpit is a ready-to-use pack, in English, with no macros. It replaces home-made spreadsheets, quotes compared in your head and forgotten formalities, from the first viewing to the twelfth month of letting.

French specifics, kept and explained

Written for English-speaking buyers and investors in France. The French rules and terms are kept and explained in English, because they are the words your notaire, bank, contractors and town hall will use: frais de notaire, compromis de vente, diagnostics and the DPE energy rating, déclaration préalable / permis de construire, décennale and dommage-ouvrage insurance, location nue / meublée / courte durée (meublé de tourisme), TVA on works at 5.5 / 10 / 20%. Prices are 2026 benchmarks in euros, each with its source and date. No personalised tax calculation; not financial advice.

What you get

• France-Property-Cockpit.xlsx – the control workbook, 11 tabs, native Excel formulas, compatible with Excel 2016 and later and with Google Sheets (File > Import):
  • Read me: 20-minute start, colour code, conventions, the French terms used in the workbook explained in English (14 entries), disclaimer.
  • Settings: project type, rental mode, alert thresholds, assumptions (notaire fees, contingency, vacancy, management, loan), drop-down lists.
  • Budget: purchase price, calculated notaire fees, agency fees, 14 work packages (demolition, structural work, electrical, plumbing, heating and cooling, windows and doors, insulation, partitions, flooring, painting, kitchen, bathroom, home automation, exterior), fees, insurance, 10% contingency, furniture; planned / accepted quote / committed / paid / remaining / variance, alerts, summary by category, charts.
  • Quotes: up to 3 quotes per package (excl. VAT, VAT at 5.5 / 10 / 20%, incl. VAT, lead time, warranty, score), the accepted quote flows into the Budget automatically, price rank, checks (two accepted quotes, décennale to check, package without an accepted quote).
  • Schedule: 5 milestones (deed, planning consent, works start, handover, rental start) and a 40-week weekly Gantt chart by package, built entirely with formulas and conditional formatting.
  • Progress: planned % to date, actual %, estimated delay in days, traffic light, site visit notes, snags at handover.
  • Paperwork: 17 dated, ordered steps from the purchase offer to the tax return (compromis, loan, surveys, DP or building permit, dommage-ouvrage, DOC, utilities, Consuel, DAACT, DPE, PNO, lease or holiday-let registration, tourist tax, CFE), with owner, dates, status, supporting document, “Overdue” and “Due soon” alerts.
  • Financing: deposit, loan, monthly payment (PMT) with and without insurance, debt-to-income ratio, amortisation table for the first 12 months, total cost of credit.
  • Profitability: three scenarios side by side (long-term unfurnished, long-term furnished, short-term): income, expenses, monthly cash flow, gross and net yield, payback on works; no personalised tax calculation.
  • Rental log: the first 12 months of rents, expenses, maintenance and vacancy, running totals and gap against the chosen scenario.
  • Dashboard: printable A4 landscape page, planned / expected / committed / paid budget, progress, next steps, the 5 alerts to deal with, profitability of the chosen scenario, 2 native charts. Delivered filled with a complete fictitious data set (68 m² two-bedroom flat in Albi, south-west France, €142,000 + €38,000 of works, 29 quotes, 17 steps, mid-works status): every calculation and every alert is visible as soon as you open the file; simply replace the data with your own.
• France-Property-Cockpit-Guide.pdf – 25 A4 pages: the 5 phases of a project; the 2026 prices to know, sourced and dated (renovation per m² by level, masonry and timber-frame construction, home automation package, notaire fees, dommage-ouvrage insurance, VAT on works); the order of works and the traps in quotes; building in masonry or timber frame, RE2020, sensible home automation; the paperwork in order with its lead times; letting long-term, furnished or short-term and the 2026 rules (holiday-let registration, change of use, minimum DPE, tourist tax, micro-BIC); how to use the workbook tab by tab; three checklists (viewing, handover of works, rental start); a glossary of 34 entries (32 French terms and 2 workbook terms) and the figures to remember.

The method

Three figures at every phase (total expected cost, progress or delay, monthly cash flow), five alerts ranked by severity, ten minutes a week during the works and ten minutes a month once the property is let. The workbook is the project's single source; the guide explains what to look at and when.

Calculated, not declared

Notaire fees and contingency, VAT and amounts including VAT of the quotes, expected cost of each line (committed, else accepted quote, else planned), variances and budget alerts, planned % to date and estimated delay of each package, traffic lights, overdue or upcoming steps, monthly payment and amortisation, income, expenses, cash flow and yields of the three scenarios, gap between rents received and planned rents. The thresholds are set once in Settings.

Quality

No macros, no add-ins, no recent-only functions: the workbook opens in Excel 2016 and in Google Sheets. Drop-down lists, frozen panes, filters, conditional formatting, named ranges, print areas. Formulas recalculated in Excel and checked independently on the fictitious data set. Written with the help of AI and reviewed by an investor and project manager; prices and rules sourced with URL and date (18 French-language sources).

Unlimited personal use: copy and adapt the workbook for as many projects as you like, and share it with the people involved in your project. Resale, redistribution and publication of the content are prohibited. Includes 12 months of updates.

Fictitious data. Decision-support tool: not legal, tax or financial advice.

Seller: SASU MOE CAPITAL, 95 impasse des Garennes, 81710 Saïx, France. Terms of Service · Consumers: 14-day right of withdrawal, Withdraw from contract here · Consumer mediator (France): Société de la Médiation Professionnelle (SMP), Alteritae, 5 rue Salvaing, 12000 Rodez, France – www.mediateur-consommation-smp.fr.