Searching for lakes and ponds for sale in Mayenne means exploring hedgerow country, the bocage, where water bodies are numerous: forge ponds, mill ponds, and ponds dug for watering cattle or for fishing. Sales are steady, driven by a supply of small country ponds, often surrounded by meadows and oak hedgerows, from the Coëvrons to the Craonnais by way of the Laval area. This page brings together the lakes and ponds for sale in the department, offered by private sellers, agents and notaires’ offices, from simple land with a pond to a farm with its own lake.
Following this introduction, the price panel compares Mayenne with the Pays de la Loire region and the national average. The content below describes the department’s pond areas, the buyers who look for them, the legal framework for a headwater pond and the upkeep of a bocage dam. The stages of the purchase are set out in our practical guide to acquiring a pond.
According to the ma-propriete.fr pond price observatory, which keeps only ponds, lakes and pools sold without buildings in the French DVF land registry data, 45 pond sales were recorded in Mayenne between July 2020 and December 2025, at a median price of €30,628/ha* and an average of €34,897/ha. Per square metre, the median works out at about €3.06. In 2025, 14 sales give a median of €43,897/ha†. In Pays de la Loire, 342 ponds sold over the same period at a median of €25,243/ha, and the regional median reached €21,944/ha in 2025* across 53 sales; the national median was €25,235/ha in 2025.
| Indicator | Mayenne (53) | Pays de la Loire | France |
|---|---|---|---|
| Median price 2020-2025 | €30,628/ha* | €25,243/ha | €25,694/ha |
| Average price 2020-2025 | €34,897/ha* | €30,685/ha | €32,291/ha |
| Number of sales 2020-2025 | 45 | 342 | 2,053 |
| Median price 2025 | €43,897/ha† | €21,944/ha* | €25,235/ha |
| Number of sales 2025 | 14 | 53 | 300 |
Prices are calculated over the whole area sold, water, dams and surroundings included: per hectare, small equipped ponds cost much more than large lakes. These statistics cover ponds without buildings; a house or an adjoining wood changes how the price is formed.
On the listings side, 6 properties with a pond are offered on ma-propriete.fr in Pays de la Loire as of 2 October 2026, 1 of them in Mayenne. Their median asking price is €184,500 for a median size of about 2.0 ha. These are asking prices for complete properties: they describe the supply on offer more than the average price of a wooded hectare. To work out the full cost of a purchase, add the conveyancing fees with our notary fee calculator.
* 30 to 99 sales: indicative value. Source: DVF (French tax authority), processed by ma-propriete.fr; ponds, lakes and pools without buildings of at least 2,000 m², with water covering at least half of the property; July 2020 to December 2025. Listings recorded on 2 October 2026.
Iron shaped some of Mayenne’s ponds. At Port-Brillet, metalworking grew out of an old forge and continued right up to the Chappée foundry; the Étang de la Forge, next to the village, keeps its memory alive. Other large ponds have become public leisure sites: the Étang du Gué de Selle at Mézangers, at the foot of the Coëvrons hills, and the Étang de la Rincerie, the Craonnais outdoor centre at La Selle-Craonnaise. They are not on the market, but local anglers treat them as a yardstick.
The private market is mostly made up of small bocage ponds, fed by a spring, a ditch or a headwater stream. They hold carp, tench, roach, pike and sometimes black bass; draining, every few years, remains the time to sort the fish, sell the surplus and check the structures. The valleys of the Mayenne, a river long since improved for navigation, the Oudon and the Erve also offer waterside properties, but ponds proper are found mainly in side valleys and on the plateaus.
The market relies on local buyers: anglers from Laval, Mayenne or Château-Gontier, farmers extending their holdings, and families looking for a weekend fishing pond. Buyers from Rennes, Le Mans or Angers also look at the department; they tend to favour a house with a pond or a former farm with its own lake. Ponds without buildings suit leisure use, provided you check the access and whether a hut is allowed, which depends on the local plan (plan local d’urbanisme), often restrictive in farming or natural zones. If you are comparing neighbouring departments, the ponds for sale in Sarthe and those in Maine-et-Loire offer different landscapes, more wooded or more shaped by the Loire.
In Mayenne, many ponds sit on small streams at the head of a catchment, where water first rises. The Loire-Bretagne river basin plan (SDAGE) gives these areas particular protection and tightly controls the creation of ponds, banned where they are already numerous and in catchments containing biological reservoirs. An existing pond therefore only holds lasting value if it is lawful: ask for the declaration receipt or the authorisation order under French water law, or proof of its long-standing existence. Without these documents, the new owner will have to regularise the pond with the DDT, the departmental territorial office, which may impose conditions: diverting the stream, fitting a monk outlet that drains from the bottom, or installing a sediment trap. Also check whether the pond counts as closed or open water, which sets the fishing rules, and whether there are wetlands or protected species along the banks. In the north-east, part of the department belongs to the Normandie-Maine regional nature park, whose charter guides local planning documents.
Mayenne’s ponds, often shallow, silt up from leaves falling from the hedgerows and soil washed off the catchment. Before buying, measure the water depth at several points, ask when the pond was last dredged and where the silt is meant to go. Inspect the dam: coypu and muskrat burrows, trees rooted on the crest, seepage at the foot of the bank. Check the monk, its boards and its grille, as well as the spillway, which must carry a storm flood without water spilling over the dam. Dry summers lower ponds fed only by run-off, so ask the seller how the water level behaves in August. Our pond maintenance guide helps you estimate the annual budget.
Mayenne pond listings gathered on ma-propriete.fr come from private sellers, agents and notaires; sorting by size, price and property type helps you tell a simple pond from a property with a house, and an alert lets you know when new ones come up. Owners can list their pond there as well. If your project includes woodland around the water, see the woods and forests for sale in Mayenne; to widen the search to the region, browse the lakes and ponds for sale in Pays de la Loire.
