Above: Crossing the bridge at dusk:
Confolens, Limousin, France.
Above: Field of sunflowers,
Charente-Maritime, France.
Above:
Canal near Marennes, Charente-Maritime.
PROPERTY
PRICE TRENDS IN FRANCE
GENERAL FACTORS
INFLUENCING FRENCH HOUSE PRICES
As with most other countries, you will find that the price of
properties on or near to the coast in France command a premium, and
houses are generally cheaper the further inland you go.
Whilst
the French property market tends to rise more slowly and steadily than
its British counterpart, due to several factors - smaller population to
land mass ratio, stricter lending
criteria by French banks, greater incidence of renting, and the
tendency of the French to view a house as something to be lived in
rather than as a speculative investment - certain popular regions
(largely those favoured by foreign buyers) have in recent years
outstripped other regions of France by a considerable margin: see the
historic data for 2006 below as an example.
LATEST
HOUSE PRICES UPDATE FOR FRANCE
FNAIMS figures for house prices in France:
JANUARY 2010
FNAIM reports for January 2010 that apartment prices are down -0.8%
on the month, and houses show a slight price increase of +0.6% on
the month.
Their year on year figures show -3.8% to end of
January 2010 against -8.1% on the year ending August 2009.
AUGUST 2009:
- June 2009: Decrease of -1.8%
- July 2009: An increase of 0.4%
- August 2009: Decrease of -1.2%
- Yearly: Last 12 months a decrease of -8.9%
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
HISTORIC HOUSE PRICE UPDATES
2006
According to estate agents Knight Frank property in France rose by
8.9% in the last year. FNAIM which is the French national federation of
estate agents, puts the overall rise at 13.6% in 2004-2005 and 8.5% in
2005-2006. There are, however quite large regional variations, the more
perennially popular regions, (like Normandy, Brittany, Province, etc),
have experienced house price inflation of almost double the national
average. So you will need to research the area you are interested in
before you buy.
An article I read in a newspaper a few months ago
suggested that price rises were tailing off and that anecdotal evidence
from estate agents in France suggested that Brits, especially those
buying as an investment, had not been buying houses in France in the
last year, apparently deserting France to buy houses in accession
countries to the EU like Macedonia.
MARCH 2007
Source:
Article in the Daily Telegraph by Ambrose Evans-Pritchard.
French
property construction dropped 15.1% in February and house prices
dropped by 0.6% in January. Since 1995, French house prices have risen
by 210%. The crisis in the sub-prime market which has caused house
prices to drop in America may lead to a crash there and this could
spread to Europe with France's OFCE research institute estimating that
houses in France are 25% overvalued. In the light of this information,
if you are looking to buy a house in France you may get a better deal
by biding your time.
OCTOBER 2007
Average
house prices in
France are reported to have fallen by 0.9% in
the third quarter of 2007.
MAY 2008
F.N.A.I.M.
reports that
average French house prices rose overall by
3.8% in 2007 with variations between regions ranging from 1.1% rise in
Aquitaine to 7.3% in Brittany.
Their prediction for French house
prices in 2008 is for a stable year with rises of no more than the
current rate
of inflation in France of 1.6% although with some downside risks from
possible rising interest rates and the impact of higher fuel and food
prices on households.
It is worth bearing in mind that with house prices currently falling
dramatically in the U.S., Britain, and Spain, that this is a report by
an Estate Agents' institute and may be overly optimistic. In France's
favour though, is the fact that their banking establishment is
generally more conservative than in the U.S.A or U.K. and unlike the
bankers in those two countries, does not advance more to French house
buyers than their house is worth or lend large sums to low income
property purchasers who have no hope of repaying the loan on the
idiotic assumption that property
prices can only go up. That is not to say that French banks have no
exposure to sub prime risks from America through interbank lending, but
of more relevance to house prices in France, French house purchasers
have lower borrowing to equity ratios and therefore there should be
less forced
selling exerting a downward spiral on prices.
SEPT
2008
I
have
noticed after a trawl through some of the French Estate Agent Internet
sites that there are signs that some house prices are being reduced
"for a quick sale". Something you would not have found a couple of
years ago. Have no statistics to prove whether this is a trend yet but
will keep these pages updated when and if I do have.
Acknowledgements:
images used on the left in the text area are mainly from
morguefile.com, my thanks to biberta,
missyredboots, rosevita, doctor_bob, cohdra, mconners, kairily,
clarita, scott. m. liddel, and anyone else from morguefile whose image
appears here. All the images in the right hand column on each page have
been taken by me during my various travels in France and are copyright
of buyahouseinfrance.info.
