House prices in France
When we bought our house in south-west France about six years ago (actually come to think about it, almost exactly six years ago to the day) there was a suggestion that property prices in the region had been inflated by rick-kid foreigners like us coming in and buying up properties at inflated prices.
It was never a very convincing story - most of the ruined properties had been empty and falling into disrepair for years, even decades, and there had not been a flood of enthusiastic locals rushing to renovate them. Rather, most properties have been abandoned because of local youth making an unseemly dash for the cities and bright lights.
Be that as it may, prices were at that stage prohibitive for most locals.
Step forward to now, six years later.
Recently someone (French) pointed out an old ruin to me and said it was for sale. I do mean ruin. Literally you could cave it in with your hands if you had nothing better to do. A potential purchaser will have to do everything - new roof and walls, door and windows, electricity and water, all internal floors had fallen in, the chimney had tumbled and so on. Floor area was about 80 square metres, and the house is on a plot of land of 6500 square metres (2 acres).
The property is in a very nice location, with good views across rolling countryside.
Seeing a retirement home appearing before our eyes we checked out the price - 180,000 euros (120,000 pounds). Now that might not sound a lot to you, but remember the property is almost non-existent, although the parts that are standing have a great deal of ‘tumbledown’ charm.
Six years ago these ruins were still going very cheap. Perhaps £15,000 / 20,000 euros for the size and standard of this property. Have house prices in France - or rather, ruin prices - really got so out of control? That’s more than 2,000 euros per square metre for a falling down shell miles from anywhere. The owner has clearly not spent a single euro on the place in the last 20 years.
Well I think we’ve turned from being rich foreigners to grumpy locals, because we’d love to buy the place as our next project, but I’m sure it’s only worth a third of what they are asking for it.
And the really annoying thing is, I’m equally sure I’ll be proved wrong when someone who has just sold a three-bedroom semi in Berkshire for £2,000,000 comes along and snaps it up and turns it into a dream home.
Four years ago a house near us, a holiday home owned by an English couple, came on the market unexpectedly and they needed a quick sale for family reasons.
Although it had been ‘done up’, it really needed gutting and doing properly from scratch. We were going to put in an offer - and were prepared to go up to a very generous 80,000 euro (it was worth about 60,000 euro because of the state it was in).
They told us it was on the market for 250,000 euro!!! We thought - no chance!
Two weeks later it was sold to another English Couple for over 200,000 euro. They have spent the last 4 years throwing money down the proverbial plughole, to try and correct the various defects.
As long as there are ‘etrangers’ who do not do their research and are prepared to pay hugely inflated prices ……..
A couple of years ago we looked at a house similar to the one you are describing - a terrible condition house but with woodcladding everywhere to cover the defects. Presumably some lucky person bought that one as well…
Apparently a little while ago someone asked in our local tourist office if they had an ‘English’ noticeboard because they wanted to sell their house to someone English. Can’t imagine why.