Looking for recreational land for sale in Loire-Atlantique (44) means discovering a department where the Brière marshland, the hedgerow country of the Retz and the hillsides of the Nantes vineyard meet, between the Loire estuary and the ocean. Reed beds and wet meadows in the Brière, hedge-lined meadows in the Retz, vine-covered hillsides around Clisson make up most of the non-buildable supply. On this page, ma-propriete.fr gathers the listings of recreational land for sale in Loire-Atlantique: a marshland plot, a hedge-lined meadow, a vine-covered hillside with access.
You will find price benchmarks drawn from actual sales, a tour of the areas where these plots are concentrated and the precautions to take before buying in an agricultural or natural zone, particularly in wetlands and along the coast. First read our guide on how to turn agricultural land into recreational land: it explains what the planning rules really allow.
There is no such thing as a "recreational land price" in the French notarial records: the DVF database records sales of agricultural land, woodland and ponds, and a recreational plot is priced against these three benchmarks, higher or lower depending on what it adds (vehicle access, a water point, fencing, an existing shelter, a village nearby). The table below gives, for each benchmark, the sales recorded in 2025 in Loire-Atlantique (44), the median price and the range between the first decile (floor) and the ninth decile (ceiling), with the national figure for comparison.
| DVF 2025 benchmark | Sales | Median price | Range (P10 – P90) | France median |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bare agricultural land (€/ha) | 380 | €2,200/ha | €1,596/ha – €3,533/ha | €5,307/ha |
| Woodland (€/ha) * | 256 | €5,000/ha | €3,017/ha – €9,426/ha | €4,934/ha |
| Pond (€/m²) * | 53 | €2.19/m² | €0.82/m² – €5.46/m² | €2.54/m² |
Bare agricultural land is well below the national median (€5,307/ha), with the median price moving +10.0% between 2020 and 2025. Woodland trades close to the national benchmark (€4,934/ha), and a pond, a much rarer asset, is valued per square metre of water and banks. To compare a listing, bring everything back to the square metre: €2,200/ha of bare land is €0.22/m², against €2.19/m² for a pond. Recreational land, almost always classified as an agricultural or natural zone, generally sells slightly above bare agricultural land; but it usually remains subject to the SAFER land agency's right of pre-emption, and the SAFER may pre-empt with a downward price revision if the price is excessive compared with local land prices. These benchmarks therefore also help you avoid paying a price the SAFER would challenge.
Find the detail by department, plot size and year in our agricultural land price observatory and in the forest price observatory. Source: DVF (Demandes de valeurs foncières), 2025 sales, processed by ma-propriete.fr; medians published from 30 sales upwards. * Fewer than 30 sales in the department: the benchmark shown is the regional figure for "Woodland"; regional figure for "Pond".
The Grande Brière, between Saint-Nazaire and La Baule, offers a unique landscape of marshland and reed beds crossed by canals, where plots mostly sell as wet meadows or land for hunting and fishing, rarely buildable even for a simple cabin. The Pays de Retz, south of the Loire, keeps a hedgerow landscape with fenced meadows, close to the Breton marsh around Bourgneuf-en-Retz and Machecoul. The Nantes vineyard, around Clisson and Vallet, offers hillsides once planted with vines, sometimes pulled up, facing south along the Sèvre nantaise.
To the north, the Sillon de Bretagne and the areas around Blain and Nozay offer more conventional deciduous woodland, though supply there stays limited. Ponds exist in modest numbers across the department, mostly in the hedgerow country of the Retz and the Segréen, where old farm ponds have sometimes been enlarged, and in the wet valleys of the Baugeois, more rarely in the Brière, where water moves through canals rather than closed ponds.
The Grande Brière, around Saint-Lyphard, Guérande and Herbignac, holds most of the supply of marshland plots, at prices that have stayed modest given the strong environmental constraints. The Pays de Retz, towards Bourgneuf-en-Retz, Machecoul and Legé, offers hedge-lined meadows and a few woods, in an area that remains rural despite the proximity of Nantes. The Nantes vineyard, from Clisson to Vallet and Le Loroux-Bottereau, attracts buyers looking for vine-covered hillsides, with growing pressure linked to wine tourism and the nearby Nantes urban area. The Sillon de Bretagne, to the north around Blain and Nozay, remains more low-key.
The most affordable areas remain the deep Brière and the Pays de Retz away from the coast. Vine-covered hillsides near Clisson, along with plots near the Guérande coast or the Loire estuary, sell well above the departmental average, which nonetheless stays below the national one.
In the Brière, designated Natura 2000 and a protected wetland, French water law strictly regulates any development, and building a cabin or a shelter there is in principle excluded without specific authorisation. On the coast and the Loire estuary, the Loi Littoral applies to riverside and coastal communes, even some distance from the shore, and heavily restricts what can be built, even on agricultural land. Elsewhere, the local planning document classifies most land as agricultural (A) or natural (N), where a chalet or a light leisure dwelling cannot be installed freely. Check access to the plot, sometimes only possible by water in the Brière.
On the hillsides of the Nantes vineyard, the SAFER land agency may exercise its right of pre-emption on agricultural land, with a risk of the price being revised down if it strays from local land prices. Water and electricity are lacking on many isolated marshland and hedgerow plots. Finally, flood zones are common along the Loire and its tributaries and should be checked before any project, even a minor one, and reed-cutting or fishing rights on a marshland plot may belong to someone other than the landowner.
The listings of recreational land in Loire-Atlantique published on ma-propriete.fr come from private sellers, estate agents and notaries. Filter by area (Brière, Pays de Retz, Nantes vineyard) and by the presence of a pond, then set up an e-mail alert to be notified of new plots. You can also widen your search to recreational land for sale in Pays de la Loire.
