Hunting Property for Sale in Loire-Atlantique: Wildfowling Marshes, Northern Woods and the Pays de Retz

A hunting property for sale in Loire-Atlantique nearly always belongs to one of two families: the marshes, which make the department one of the great wildfowling areas of western France, and the woods north of the Loire, where wild boar top the game bag. The Brière, Lac de Grand-Lieu, the estuary, the Goulaine marshes and the Marais breton around the Bay of Bourgneuf make up the first; the state forest of Le Gâvre, the woods of the Châteaubriant and Ancenis areas, and the bocage of the Pays de Retz make up the second. Large private woodland blocks are few, and supply is mostly woods of a few dozen hectares, marsh meadows and farms with their shooting. This page gathers these hunting properties and grounds for sale, listed by private sellers, estate agents and notaires.

After this introduction, a data block sets out the prices of forests and ponds sold in Loire-Atlantique and across the region, followed by the big game culls recorded by the French Biodiversity Agency (OFB); then come the two families of ground and what to check, from reserves to fencing.

The price of a hunting estate in Loire-Atlantique

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 Loire-Atlantique was €4,767/ha in 2025†, with an average of €5,115/ha, across 18 sales. Across 18 transactions, a handful of unusual sales is enough to move both median and average: these values are not truly representative of the local market and should be read against regional prices. In Pays de la Loire, the median reached €5,000/ha in 2025 across 254 sales, with an average of €5,683/ha; the national median was €4,936/ha. Over 2020-2025, the department recorded 116 sales at a median of €5,471/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, which often make much of a shoot’s value, trade at a very different level: a median of €15,244/ha for the 45 ponds sold without buildings in Loire-Atlantique between 2020 and 2025*.

On the listings side, 18 hunting properties are offered on ma-propriete.fr across France as of 2 October 2026, 1 of them in Pays de la Loire. 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 Loire-Atlantique: 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 Loire-Atlantique, 101 red deer were taken in the 2024-2025 season, about 0.1% of the national total, alongside 5,352 roe deer and 7,736 wild boar.

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

Hunting property for sale in Loire-Atlantique: marshes, Le Gâvre and the bocage

Brière, Grand-Lieu and the estuary: wildfowl country

North of Saint-Nazaire, the Brière regional nature park protects one of the largest marshes in France. Its core, the Grande Brière Mottière, is held in undivided ownership by the Brière communes and run by a joint commission: it is not for sale, and hunting there follows local rules. Private properties lie on its fringes and in the neighbouring marshes: wet meadows, reed beds and ponds. South of Nantes, the heart of Lac de Grand-Lieu is a national nature reserve; in the estuary, the Migron and Massereau game and wildlife reserves, at Frossay, line the south bank.

In these marshes, wildfowl are mostly shot at flight, at dawn and dusk, from a pond or a hide at the edge of the reeds. The Marais breton, shared with Vendée around the Bay of Bourgneuf, and the Goulaine marshes east of Nantes complete the picture. Flood meadows are often grazed in summer and the upkeep of ditches and channels is frequently shared, so have these obligations spelt out, and check whether the plot lies in a game reserve or a Natura 2000 site.

Le Gâvre and the northern woods: boar, roe and red deer

Between Blain, Plessé, Vay and Guémené-Penfao, the state forest of Le Gâvre covers several thousand hectares of sessile oak, beech and pine; red deer are present, and hunting with hounds still takes place there, not without controversy. The forest is not for sale, but the private woods around it benefit from its wildlife. Further north and east, the Châteaubriant and Ancenis areas offer medium-sized woods, bocage and small valleys: a hunting wood here is first of all boar and roe deer ground, shot in drives. “Black spot” areas may even be designated there when boar damage calls for stronger measures.

South of the Loire, the Pays de Retz offers more open bocage, scattered private woods and wetlands around Lac de Grand-Lieu; a shooting ground there often combines a few hectares of wood, meadows and a pond. On the coast, the Loi Littoral (coastal protection act) and land prices make large grounds almost impossible to find, from the Guérande peninsula to the Côte de Jade. If you are after a larger forest, widen your search to hunting properties in Maine-et-Loire, where red deer are more common.

Checks before buying

Who holds the hunting right depends on the commune: it may stay with each property, be let to a local hunting club or have been pooled in an ACCA (approved municipal hunting association), which land can only leave above a minimum single-block area. Ask the town hall before committing. If farmland is let, remember that under French agricultural tenancy law the sitting tenant farmer keeps a personal right to shoot over the fields they farm. For a wood under 4 ha, adjoining woodland owners have a right of first refusal that must be cleared.

Finally, review the cull plans, the sums claimed for boar damage and the state of any fences. The act of 2 February 2023 requires fences put up in natural areas since 1993 to be raised 30 cm off the ground and capped at 1.20 m before 1 January 2027. Our article on bringing fences into compliance explains the rules.

Loire-Atlantique hunting grounds listed on ma-propriete.fr come from private sellers, estate agents and notaires; filter them by price and size and get an email for each new listing. For woodland alone, see our forests for sale in Loire-Atlantique; if water comes first, try our lakes and ponds for sale in Loire-Atlantique; to widen the search, see the hunting properties for sale in the Pays de la Loire.