French Property Today – a Historical Perspective
Today’s French property market is very exciting. Highly competitive pricing and lower interest rates in the market place are making it an extremely interesting proposition again. It offers greater property choices to the buyer than at any other time ever.
- reduction of as much as 25% on the property prices of 2006 in some departments
- more French properties on the market then ever
- more quality restored properties
- house prices have levelled to around 2003/2004 values.
Looking back over the last couple of decades, we can see certain trends
Historical Trends.
1980’s – 1995
Prices increased to more than the first time buyer could afford and this in turn put a halt on the entire property market.Prices fell. This decline continued through to the mid 1990’s.1995 is regarded as the bottom of this decline.
At this time superb property bargains were on offer at great prices.
1995 – 2008
Reckless lending policies prolonged this boom period for an unatural period and consequently when the drop in prices came in 2007 it was much more severe than it needed to be.
Finally, the market overheated and this together with the global recession sent prices tumbling in 2008.
Future Trends
Today we are still feeling the after shock of the dramatic collapse of the market. However, we can be optimistic.
If 2006 was the last peak for French property prices – and if history is repeated – we could expect the next new peak around 2015 with prices slowly rising until then
Indications are that sterling value against the Euro will continue to slowly increase. With only 16% capital gains tax for EU citizens residing outside of France, exemption after 15 years, and low local property taxes, an investment in France makes economic sense.
Many predict that we can expect higher inflation – making the French property market a good choice to put money. Historical trends and today’s prices indicate that today is a good time to take a serious look at some of the bargain properties available and to take advantage of some of the highly competitive interest rates available from the banks.
