Property Prices in France
May 20, 2010 by tony · Leave a Comment
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.
The Future of Realtors in France
In my blog over at New Bricks and Pantiles – I am taking stock about the work I am doing in selling real-estate.
I mention some of the techniques on the Internet which a buyer can use to search for a home and I say this will be soon available online from websites offering these services. Well today it is happening in the USA and every day more cities are added to the system. This post by Trulia shows one super tool agents are beginning to use.
This street mapping is not in France yet, but the writing is on the wall. Unless agents in France get real about their commissions and operate a Multi Listing System, then they will be out of business because no one in their sane mind is going to pay tens of thousands of euro for what can be a few pleasant afternoons on a laptop.
Finding the perfect house should be as easy as sitting in a pleasant cafe, searching through all the listings from compilation websites offering a mashup of agents, owners and mapping services – then with some deductive software and directories, finding the address of the owners, emailing, phoning or skyping the owner (or their keyholder) you select and calling round to look at a property.
You can sort through hundreds of offerings in an afternoon instead of the stressful and wasteful four or five you are offered, often blindfold, by agents in France.
All other “services” offered by agents, mortgages, selecting a Notaire etc, can be done online while you sit by the pool and you can get professional advice and comparisons of rates while your glass is refilled.
The many thousands of euro you save in commissions will more than pay for the five star treatment you are giving yourself and you may still have saved enough to buy a new car.