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Abstract: The property of merchants, their methods of management and the incomes they gained are largely ignored by historians in favour of a history centred on aristocratic palaces. This study aims to analyse the ways in which rental property was acquired and managed by a number of merchants of Lyon during the XVIIIth century in a site of great commercial importance. Such a study allows us to examine the links and contradictions between notions of public and private space in the early modern period. The survival of private archives makes this possible and this essay focuses on one example, that of Jean-François Fayet whose property and strategies for raising income will be discussed in order to illustrate the geographies involved and the often complex ways in which he managed his affairs.