..and you look far too young and vigorous to be having a hip replacement! Good luck anyway. Ops are always better once they've been had, and tomorrow you'll have had it!
Blimey, things don't always turn out the way one hopes do they?
Thanks Maria..
there are pockets of non Europeans buying....but it tends to be Russian oligarchs buying on the cote d'azure or Provence....some Australians are buying in Provence too....but if buying for keeps I guess it doesn't matter. A lot of people are tempted to buy now in Europe with prices falling....though its still not the time to buy.....prices will fall further...
I can not remember that it was possible to get a loan for 3% over 20 years with very little security. I grew up in Germany and remember that for a bank loan you should have aprox 1/3 accumulated through a subsidized saving plan. What is now going on in Germany today is the same as here from 2000 to 2004. People going into it now will be slaughtered like lambs in approx 20 mouth. Here in Uzes region Swiss people are still buying, so Non-European currency.
With its 16 trillion mountain of debts the "recovery" in the US is kind of funny... With the new tax regulations we will see. And if Us & European well-fare-recipients soon can not anymore afford to purchase Chinese goods, to support the Chinese GDP so to speak, what then, in Shanghai the prices are really going down much faster then here.
Good luck with your op Carol. Next year will be your year when you sell your house I am sure!!!
Sorry Brian...I didnt clarify. I was talking about housing markets in euro using countries...not outside of Europe.... I think investing in German housing is a safe bet. German markets may fall but like in the UK they quickly return...not like most of Europe. Buying in Germany is usually a safe investment...they have a very competent person in charge who understands finances and budget controls...along with a good business mind....not so for most of the rest of Europe. Worldwide...Australia and New Zealand properties at an all time high....middle and near East have a growing market and China will be the country that outshines all others... China is a country that will offer a great market place for European sales..if Europe can get its act together. Interestingly the US housing markets are making a better recovery than most European countries. The UK market is great in some areas and dead in others...the same divide as always...the SE is thriving and prices rising...anything north of the midlands is not doing so well.
No, Germany is contracting economically at present. 3.7% down on this time last year. US $ buyers are doing very well, so US, Chinese, various middle and near eastern countries... It is not so much the French situation as the amount of property in Spain that is at give away prices that is hitting France within Euroland, Sterling is becoming marginal in that sense because it accounts for a diminishing share of sales.
I think in these fragile markets the buyer usually sets the selling price......I think the question at the moment.. is who is going to buy in Euro land? only those who either live in a Euro using country...or those who can lose their investment and not worry about it. Germany is one of the few places in Euroland I think you could buy in and be pretty sure your investment was safe.
Cheers Brian....after 6 years of hobbling around...will be nice to be able to walk again!
All the best with the op!
aint life grand when we are wearing our rose coloured specs....and believing all the garbage sent to us!
Angela I moved back 6 weeks ago and living in our flat in Newbury.....I have a hip replacement tomorrow.....but am working again. My OH here and will stay till mid February..he will then shlep back to the Dordogne..depending on work...I will get out rarely...but may manage the odd long weekend....OH will be living in the Dordogne and popping back and forth monthly.
The Leggett agent over there would have blood, they do 'poach' each other's houses but it is better done by agreement. I gather the one there is not doing well now after a few good years. I shall actually ask and leave you a PM.
thanks! though it's only an accepted offer and the buyer proposes to pay half now and half in a year, so may cost more in notaire's fees than usual. Are you actually living in UK now then? how often do you get to the Dordogne. We never do now, (mother in situ, can't get away).
The problem is that many mags are now using free content - basically 'advertorial' to fill their pages so you either get the "we moved to the Ardeche" feature which is basically plugging someone's gites or a zuped up press release.I get sent the latter on a weekly basis from developers - last week I got one that claimed the UK retiree gated development market was booming in France. With statistics to back it up.....
Ours is certainly what you would call 'a French house'. We have spent a small fortune...but on putting on a new felted roof...new large septic tank.....sorting out electrics......and replastering...basically making a nice house, nicer, watertight and aesthetically pleasing. We havent added new kitchens etc....what was here was fine and newish...(last 10 years)....we have just removed hideous wallpaper, plastered walls that were manky....and everything is painted off white. We have always done this to sell houses...never added our taste of kitchens and bathrooms...just left a good blank canvass on a house that is well maintained. We have a flat in the Languedoc that we are not planning on selling yet..but if we sell our house in the Dordogne..then we wont be able to do a 4.5 hour drive to St Cyp...it will be a flight to Perpignan from a London or Southampton airport and a hire car....that will be racking up close to £800 for a week...so we will probably sell that too....dont even want to think about another attempted
sale!
I have always advised people to buy in France because they genuinely like it, and for the long, very long, term. Rural idylls simply are not very speculative unless you are in a very expensive area and likely to appeal to the very rich of whatever nationality. I spent the best part of my life "doing up" houses professionally in the UK and parctically every purchaser used to rip out brand new kitchens, bathrooms etc. The market became besotted with all the latest gizmos and very often they add cost but not necessarily value. Savills had done much research on this. We did plenty of ten bedroom, ten bathroom houses, eith gyms, indoor pools, gun rooms, boot rooms, car hoists, strongrooms etc. Only in the best locations do these things make any difference and what was fashionable one decade certainly isn't the next. Wildly doing up a house in France to what is basically British taste won't work for many purchasers. The best way is to try to find an area or house that has potential and buy it very cheap before anyone else. One man's meat is very much another man's poison though. All you need is one purchaser. I think one of the main problems has been all the press, all the TV programmes and everybody jumping in a race. Don't necessarily believe all the agents either. Many years I was trying to leave Manchester (why?) and decided to get an agent to look at my end of terrace house in a reasonably (for then) trendy part of town. I'd done up the house to a sort of loft standard, exposed brickwork, stripped floors, primary colours etc. He walked round and said that the interior would put off most people but the house had "one" thing going for it- it was "almost semi-detached"! He gave it a very low valuation but I sold it for my price privately that very afternoon! I have never bought a done-up house or flat, but concentrated on ruins. However projects like those are not for people of a nervous disposition.
Your wife sounds great...can she come sell my place Brian please?!