The purpose of this study is to highlight the determinants of market rents and to build a hedonic market rent index for each urban area and rental sector in France for the period 1970–2013. The authors also analyse the market rent dynamics over this period, with a special attention to the turning points in the French housing policy.For this purpose, the authors implement a hedonic model, called stratified time dummy variable, using the Box–Cox transformation as a functional form.The contribution of this study to the housing research is threefold: First, the study improves our understanding of the French’s rental submarket specificities and their valuation. It sheds new light on the determinants of rents. Second, this study builds a hedonic market rent index over the period 1970–2013 for each geographical and sectoral segment (Paris urban area, urban areas of more and less than 100,000 inhabitants and private and public rental sectors). Third, this study explains rent dynamics focusing on the turning points in the French housing policy.Finally, the authors provide the first long-term market rent index in France by submarket (geographical and sectoral). In the case of the French market, no long-term market rent exists. The only long series available is an indexed rent.