The most discreet market in luxury is about to get its figures. Royal Sybaris, the international Off-Market network of luxury professionals, is launching the Off-Market Observatory, a free quarterly barometer published in French, English and Spanish.
A market that leaves no trace
The open market is measured every day: price per square metre, time to sell, price cuts. The Off-Market leaves almost no trace, and that is its very purpose. An exceptional property sold without ever being published appears in no statistics before the deed is signed, and often not even after.
In France, up to 60% of high-end sales may already take place outside the portals (Sea View Property, 2023). Yet, to our knowledge, there is no regular indicator, comparable from one country to another, to verify it.
Owners therefore decide blind. They are often advised to seek maximum exposure, without anyone being able to tell them what that exposure costs. Royal Sybaris has given this cost a name: the exposure discount, the loss of value of an exceptional property left in public view for too long. Public cases are not hard to find. La Savannah, in Marnes-la-Coquette near Paris, put on the market at €26M in 2018, sold for €8M in 2025 (Le Parisien). Such cases illustrate the phenomenon; the Observatory's mission is to measure it.
What the Observatory will measure
Every quarter, the barometer will publish four indicators, by sector, by country and by price segment:
- the Off-Market share of reported prestige transactions;
- the price gap between asking price and achieved price, Off-Market and after public exposure;
- time to sell, from mandate to signature, in both cases;
- the profile of sellers: their motives, their need for confidentiality, their geographical origin.