French economy grinds to a halt!

[donna]

Umm maybe a great time to purchase a french chateau
Here's the start of the news item -

French economic growth weakened in the three months to June, mirroring a slowdown across the 12-nation eurozone.
France's economy grew by 0.1% in the second quarter, compared to 0.4% in the first three months of the year, according to government figures. The slowdown was sharper than expected, and comes as France struggles to deal with weakening consumer demand.

Click Here to read more

Cheers,

Donna

[mpprh]

Hi

something I came across today :

"The rise in prices for properties in France slowed down in the third quarter of this year compared to the same period in 2004.
By the end of September 2005, the overall increase in property prices was 11% compared to 14% for the same period a year earlier.
This trend towards lower price increases helped boost activity in the housing market here recently".

These views are based on an a report by the Federation Nationale de L'Immobilier (FNAIM), which publishes figures every 3 months, and has done so since 1995.

The FNAIM Report concludes that "the increase in house prices should continue to progress at a slower pace, and the forecast rate of increase next year is set to be close to 10%".

Peter

[Marc]

Hello Peter,

Hey your web site looks very interesting.

Can you tell us a about yourself and your web site...

Cheers

Marc

[mpprh]

Hi

I'm an exBrit and arrived in Languedoc 6 yrs ago after living in Belgium, Sweden and US (briefly).

My PC skills were rusty, so I put a few photos of Languedoc on a webpage to learn a bit about web creation and show the family where I'd moved to. It was free hosting (geocities), free software, free everything.

Then I got interested, read a lot, and started to develop it. Now it is half tourist info, half local expat info. Learned lots about SEO, etc along the way and now it is quite succesful given that Languedoc is a small area.

I still do some consultancy, am renovating a very old property (ground floor built 1050 AD !) and increasingly doing web marketing for local businesses. Although I like to think I am semi retired I'm always busy. Don't know how I had time to go to work full time before !

A few pics from here :

Stairs (AD 1380) before :



Stairs nearly finished :




Sailing locally :



My village in autumn :



Not always sunny !





Not always warm :



I have family in NZ and OZ.

Peter

[Marc]

Hello Peter,

Wow where you live looks great and I especially enjoyed your pictures. As you would know we have nothing like that here in regards to stairs built in 1380 and still being used!

We would love to see more photo's of property around your area and if they are good for property investment. If you do have more photos then please load them up in the gallery (help guide click here).

Donna and I have always been interested in buying property in Europe so please keep telling us more! Like cost, value for money, what the demographics are for people who rent in your area etc...

Cheers

Marc

[mpprh]

Hi

I've got loads of photos here : http://www.the-languedoc-page.com/ph...-gallery-1.htm and some brief notes about buying property here : http://www.the-languedoc-page.com/li...troduction.htm

Our local city (Montpellier) has 80,000 students, and has an active rental market. The students are away (July / August) which is peak tourist season.

Return on investment is 9 - 10% if buying a property already let. Much higher returns, up to 40%, are possible from self renovation projects.

The area has been enjoying a bit of a boom. Property prices have doubled over 5 years. It is one of the fastest growing areas in France because :

Climate (330+ days of sunshine)
New highway linking to Paris
Fast train is now 3 hrs to Paris
Cheap flight connections
Was cheaper than N Europe
Is cheaper than Cote d'Azur / Provence
35 hr week + fast train allows Parisians to use property as weekend home

Consequently, there is very active renovation of old stone properties. In fact, it is getting hard to find cheap wrecks !

Many N Europeans have bought old farms, and renovated them to make letting units from the outbuildings. One nearly finished project is for sale here : http://www.aimoo.com/forum/postview....readID=2300969

The area has much history. Greeks and Romans established colonies to grow wine and olives and "harvest" salt. Archeologists are excavating a site which has evidence of an Etruscan settlement from 800 BC. Some 2000 year old roman structures are still in use. Elton John played a concert here last year :



It is used for bullfighting, sports events, concerts, etc. No Christians & Lions any more, though !

I'll put up a few pics in the gallery.

Regards

Peter

[Marc]

Hello again,

Wow I have to say that your web site is a HUGE amount of information on it and very interesting!

I have started started to read some of the articles in the living here section...

Cheers

Marc