Spare a thought for Dominique……

With everything crossed we are planning to move house ……..  I know we are very used to it, having bought and sold 12 times in our 13 years together but this is the first time we have bought and sold at the same time in France so much to consider ……

We have been thinking about it for some time as what was the perfect size for a holiday home has become a bit small as a permanent home for 2 strapping chaps and an excitable springer spaniel!

Some compromises have had to be made of course and size required vs. available budget (if we are to achieve the nirvana of ‘mortgage free’) with the premium prices commanded here in St Malo does not allow a move Intra Muros.  

Of course the business we are in allows us to see the best of what is available on the open market and we are delighted with the property we have found …..

A townhouse in a great village with lots going on, 3 bedrooms, 3 reception rooms , a big garden to keep Alfie occupied and to allow us to commune with nature and grow our own fruit and vegetables, a great price well under what we are selling our apartment for and its 3 times the size!

The process is well underway and for our regular readers, expect much of the blogging over the next few months to involve our move and our initial settling in experiences …..

But at this stage we wanted to spare a thought for Dominique …….. a 50 year old Parisian who according to the housing charity ‘Fondation Abbé Pierre’  has been living for 15 years in the worst example of illegal housing in Paris seen in modern times …….. a 1.56m² flat under the eaves of a property with room only for a tiny mattress, sink and single cooking hotplate – all for €330 per month. 

Now at this point Alfie is looking slightly concerned we have promised him at least 2m² for the luxurious new bed he had been hoping for to keep him comfortable on the patio in his

new garden ………

Lucky - we think we are …………..

Notaires’ property market report for the last quarter of 2012 and prospects for 2013

Certainly corroborating what we are all saying over here ...... it is most definitely a buyers market.

There are fewer buyers out there and vendors are having to compete more effectively to attract them. So for properties where the vendor really needs to sell, particularly here in Brittany ........ 

there are some real bargains to be had …..

http://www.notaires.fr/notaires/en/press-releases/french-property-market-report-january-2013

It's just so nice to be appreciated .......

We have just completed a search for a lovely client who has now taken possession of her very own little piece of Brittany.  We get such a sense of satisfaction in helping our clients find their 'dream' and feel even better about ourselves when they happily and independently write a testimonial.

Enough said and thanks Alison, we hope you will be very happy in your Brittany 'chalet'

Dear Stephen,
 I would highly recommend using the property search services of Brittany Gems, I cannot praise you enough, you have both been marvellous. I couldn't have wished for nicer people to help me in my search.  You have managed to tick almost every box on my wish list in the house you found for me, no easy task since I had sold the property in the alps, and when you asked what the dream would be, I told you " a chalet with a wood burner, an enclosed flat garden,  in a hamlet, with views. Oh and a mountain !" Well you came up with the lot, in a really lovely house with a real chalet feel and look inside. The only thing you didn't come up with was the mountain !!

Certainly you possess the skills to know exactly what was right for me, and have been amazingly supportive throughout, and achieved the practically impossible, given my dream list.

I could have been searching for ages to have come up with anything remotely suitable by myself. Your local knowledge has saved me from wasting time and money on repeated trips over, which would have cost a fortune and which I simply didn't have the time for. You made it so stress-free. Not only did I find the best to help me but I hope I have found two friends who I hope to remain in touch with in the future.

Thank you so so much for everything

Alison Gayler  

So is 2013 the year you will make your dream of a life in France happen?

It's that time of year again when industry folk look back over the last 12 months and make predictions for 2013 and with being in the property market here myself I like to pass on what I can. The former is relatively easy but the latter has always been and remains a case of wetting your finger and sticking it in the wind....who knows what will happen to the European economy, the euro itself or the effects of the domestic changes and austerity measures being introduced by our new President M. Hollande.

Let's start with 2012.

On a national level it looks as though the overall number of French property sales will be around 650,000 which is quite a drop on the 790,000 we saw in 2011.  The market definitely slowed in 2012 and despite the many front page headlines talking about soaring prices in Paris and on the Cote d'Azur I'm dubious that any region is currently showing price growth.

Latest research from the ‘Notaires de France’ says that some areas buck the trend and they quote Limoges as seeing a 7% rise, Toulouse an increase of 4.5% and Lille 2.9%.....don't forget though that these figures are already well out of date and I'd take them with a healthy pinch of salt. 

And Brittany, well after two years of consistent growth, +2.5% and +5.2% we do seem to have dipped slightly with last year declared at -2.9%, but that still demonstrates a rise of just under 5% over the last 3 years – still impressive when you consider the continuing worldwide economic crisis.

As in many other parts of France I am seeing plenty of local agents dropping prices from what were pretty optimistic levels.  I'm not saying that prices are in free-fall or anything dramatic like that but it seems to me that a) only properties in the best locations are selling and b) they have to be priced realistically to do so.

Forecasting anything for 2013 is pretty much a lottery but I'd be surprised if transaction numbers for 2013 weren't between the 600-650,000 range, ie showing another slight decrease and signifying another tough year for those of us who earn our living in this arena.

I'm not going to forecast anything to do with prices as the conflicting figures we are presented with by the Notaires, FNAIM, INSEE and others are meaningless. What I will say though is that I don't think we'll see many areas being touted as having rises or falls of more than 2 or 3 percent.  I sense a pretty flat market which, given what is going on in the rest of the world, is not at all a bad thing.

As I have said before, international buyers come to France for a mixture of reasons - around 40,000 of them bought in France last year and I'd predict that this number won't change much either way this year and as I highlighted last year, for those who do watch trends France did claim 7^th position in the league table of property hotspots in terms of price increases over the last 10 years (AOL Money & Finance 2012)

Of course the decision to move to France permanently or to buy a holiday home for many is not financially driven but the realisation of a dream and let’s not forget that the sunshine, great food, world class wine and welcoming culture are happily pretty much recession and inflation proof!

So ………………is 2013 the year you will make your dream of a life in France happen?