With a stronger dollar and a weaker euro, interest in buying a home in France is strong. For me, having lived here for 20 years, it is obvious that France, especially Southern France, is the best place to live.
If you are thinking about buying property in France then the first question is – how much does property cost in France. A better question, perhaps is – how much do homes sell for in France.
All French property is sold and valued by the area of usable living space in the main house, not garages or utility rooms, but main rooms, bedrooms, living rooms etc. This is shown as the price per square meter, it does not include the land or outbuildings. This habitable area is very precise and will be shown on the legal documents, tax assessments and all paperwork for a property. All property in France is sold through a Notaire and this price is reported and the cost per square meter is calculated from actual sales made.
There are now a number of websites offering help for you to find the price of French real estate. I have written about pap.fr before they have search form you can identify the cost paid per square meter.
On Facebook today I discovered from a really good blogger PollyVousFrancais another really slick site http://www.meilleursagents.com/ – it even has a mobile app wher you can point your phone at some proeprties in France and get the price properties have sold for in that location.
It is important to stress that these are not valuation or even estimates of the price of a specific property in France – but aggregated figures on historical sales.
The two sites above are OK for a quick snapshot of price indication, but If you are thinking of buying property in France do some deeper research into trends from sites like….
Immoprix
Paris Notaires
National Institute of Statistics and Economic studies
Notexpert
Other sites good for researching data on properties and places in France include….
http://www.lescommunes.com/
http://www.fallingrain.com/world/FR/
The botom line is that any property is only worth what someone is prepare to pay for it – but don’t make the mistake of comparing prices in other countries with prices in France.