Hunting Property for Sale in Essonne: Hunting Woods in the Hurepoix, the Gâtinais and the Beauce

Finding hunting property for sale in Essonne takes patience. On the doorstep of Paris, large private shoots are rare, and the department’s main forests, Sénart, Dourdan and the Essonne part of Fontainebleau, are state-owned. What comes up is mostly woods of a few hectares in the valleys of the Hurepoix, the Juine and the Essonne, wooded plots in the Gâtinais français around Milly-la-Forêt and farmland shoots in the Beauce towards Étampes. Roe deer and wild boar use most of these woods; red deer keep mainly to the west, towards Dourdan and the Rambouillet forest, and fallow deer occur in places. This page brings together the hunting woods and grounds for sale in the department, listed by private sellers, estate agents and notaires.

The data panel below gives the prices of forests and ponds sold in Essonne and the big game culls; sales are few, so it is worth comparing with neighbouring departments. We then set out where to look and the rules that matter for a small shoot in the Paris region: neighbours’ right of first refusal, pre-emption over natural areas, the cull plan, game damage and fencing.

The price of a hunting estate in Essonne

A hunting estate is rarely valued with a single figure: its price adds up the value of the woodland, the ponds, the buildings and the shooting facilities. The statistics below give benchmarks for wooded land and ponds, based on sales actually recorded.

According to the ma-propriete.fr forest price observatory, built from sales recorded in the French DVF land registry database, the median price of a hectare of forest in Essonne was €5,003/ha in 2025†, with an average of €7,375/ha, across 16 sales. This figure rests on 16 sales — too few for the average and median to reflect the department’s market faithfully, which is why they should be read alongside regional prices. In Île-de-France, the median reached €6,216/ha in 2025 across 106 sales, with an average of €7,269/ha; the national median was €4,936/ha. Over 2020-2025, the department recorded 92 sales at a median of €6,097/ha*.

Nationally, the price per hectare rises with size: the large properties that appeal to hunters sell for more per hectare than medium-sized woods.

Ponds trade at a very different level: with too few sales in Essonne, the benchmark is the regional median of €21,875/ha for ponds sold without buildings between 2020 and 2025.

On the listings side, 18 hunting properties are offered on ma-propriete.fr across France as of 2 October 2026, none in Île-de-France at that date. Their median asking price is €888,000 for a median size of about 68 ha. These are asking prices for complete properties: they describe the supply on offer more than the average price of a wooded hectare.

* 30 to 99 sales: indicative value. † 10 to 29 sales: sample too small to be representative of the local market. Source: DVF (French tax authority), processed by ma-propriete.fr; forests of 1 ha or more, cadastral type woodland; ponds without buildings of at least 2,000 m²; July 2020 to December 2025; Moselle, Bas-Rhin and Haut-Rhin are not covered by DVF. Listings recorded on ma-propriete.fr on 2 October 2026.

Game in Essonne: official game bag figures

The game bag records published by the French Biodiversity Agency (OFB) measure hunting pressure and, indirectly, the presence of big game. In Essonne, 165 red deer were taken in the 2024-2025 season, about 0.2% of the national total, alongside 2,146 roe deer and 3,417 wild boar.

Source: OFB, wild ungulates network, departmental big game bags (total culls, data published on data.gouv.fr).

Hunting property for sale in Essonne: the Hurepoix, the Gâtinais and the Beauce

The Hurepoix and the Dourdan forest: edge-of-forest woods

The Hurepoix covers the north-west of the department, between the Beauce and the Seine: farmed plateaux alternate with the wooded valleys of the Orge, the Rémarde and the Yvette. At its south-western tip, the Dourdan state forest, shared with Yvelines, and the Angervilliers forest form, with the Rambouillet forest, a wooded band where red deer, roe deer and wild boar roam. Neighbouring private woods are small, but a hunting wood that adjoins these forests benefits from their game. Further north, the Sénart forest, state-owned and given special protected-forest status, is surrounded by suburbs; almost entirely public, it leaves little room for private shoots.

The Gâtinais français and the Beauce: clearings, sandstone and plains

In the south-east, between the Essonne and École valleys, the Gâtinais français regional nature park brings together communes in Essonne and Seine-et-Marne. Woods cover the sandstone hills and slopes, with the Milly-la-Forêt communal forest, the Grands-Avaux departmental forest and the tip of the Fontainebleau forest around Courances; between them, cultivated clearings create mixed grounds suited to roe deer, wild boar and small game. In the south-west, the Essonne part of the Beauce, around Étampes and Angerville, is open cereal country: a shoot there is valued for its coverts, hedges and grass margins, which shelter grey partridge, hare and pheasant.

The marshes of the lower Juine and Essonne valleys, including those at Itteville and Fontenay-le-Vicomte, which form a special protection area, attract duck; but Essonne is not among the departments where night shooting of wildfowl is allowed. If you are looking for a large estate, you will probably need to widen your search south to Loiret and Sologne, which our article buying a shoot in Sologne describes.

What to check in Essonne

First, the hunting rights: ACCA communal hunting associations are not compulsory in Essonne, so hunting rights remain attached to the land; on a small wood, they can be let to a local shooting syndicate or pooled with neighbours. For a wood under 4 ha, owners of adjoining woodland have a right of first refusal: they must be told of the sale and can buy on the same price and terms. In pre-emption zones for sensitive natural areas, the departmental council can also step in ahead of you.

Next come game and fencing. The cull plan sets, for each ground, how many red deer, fallow deer and roe deer may be taken; ask for recent allocations. Wild boar damage to crops in the Beauce and the Gâtinais is compensated by the hunters’ federation, and the holder of a ground that does not cull can be made to contribute. Finally, an enclosure fenced since 1993 must comply with the act of 2 February 2023 before 1 January 2027; in Île-de-France, the permitted fencing materials are set by the regional master plan. Details are in our article on fencing wooded plots.

The Essonne hunting woods and grounds on ma-propriete.fr are offered by private sellers, estate agents and notaires; sort them by size or price. As supply is thin, an email alert is the simplest way not to miss a property; you can also post a listing for your own wood. For a mainly woodland purchase, see our woods for sale in Essonne; for more choice, widen your search to shooting in Seine-et-Marne and to hunting estates across Île-de-France.