Dave_in_Paris

You can also see private owner offers on the Web site of the leading real estate weekly Particulier a Particulier (Google it.) In a total of eight French real estate transactions in 19 years we've seen everything and more, and it has been a blast!

Dave_in_Paris

You have very good advice in earlier posts in this string. For Paris real estate, the approach depends to a certain extent on your budget. If you are fairly flush, I think it's best to choose an area or two that you really love. You can "window shop" at realtors in those area and get an idea of asking prices, if you like, or better yet, drop in on a realtor or two in each area and inquire about the average price per square meter in the neighborhood. A discuss should ensue in which you relate your criteria in detail. This will establish you as a sensible customer. Any realtor worth his or her salt will be willing and able to answer the price per square meter question. The range of prices in a given Paris area will depend on many factors: quality of the building, floor the apartment is on, whether or not there's an elevator, exposition (quality of the light) and renovation that may be needed. (The leading weekly magazine annually publish issues with detailed information on real estate, including average price per square meter in narrowly defined sectors of the city.) If your budget is more limited, the choice of neighborhood and quality of apartment may be dictated by that factor. Keep in mind that the Paris market is at a spike high (perhaps now a bit higher than before the early 1990s crash). There have been, on average, increases of more than 10 percent in the last four or five years. Most of the commentary does not suggest the prospect of another crash, but there may not be a lot more appreciation over the near to middle term. My own thought is that at this point a purchase in Paris should be mainly for pleasure, not investment. The best investments can be made in the provinces, I think, or somewhat longer term,in towns within an hour or two by train from Paris. Southward from Paris is still quite reasonably priced. For example in La Charite sur Loire, a timeworn, charming town of 3,000 two hours and fifteeen minutes south of Paris by train, with several trains to Paris per day, houses are sold for as little as 35,000 to 60,000 euros (with plenty of renovation needed, no doubt) and typical prices with some land are 100,000 to 125,000 euros. One of the big pluses on French real estate is that property taxes are still relatively low, even in Paris. Have fun with the search!

Lutece

My husband and I hired Paris Real Estate Finders www.parisrealestatefinders.com to purchase our Paris apartment. PREF is run by an American couple, Darrell Halverson and Stephanie Freedman, and we can wholeheartedly recommend them. It's worth a visit to their website just for the general info about the purchasing process.

Other than that, www.pap.fr is my favorite way to window shop the real estate market.

mermaid_

Lutece, it turns out that's the same couple who has the VRBO listing I mentioned (#15398). I was wondering about them so it is nice to hear that they are reputable and competent (they seemed like it from the website).

Robespierre, if you do get your hands on a Parisian pied-a-terre, how about a Fodors GTG!

Lutece

Mermaid,

I can absoulutely vouch for Darrell and Stephanie - we trust them completely. Heck, Stephanie orchestrated our entire bathroom renovation!

We have actually been inside that apartment (VRBO 15398) - it is super cute! I wish we could have afforded something that adorable. As I recall, D&S helped with the renovation of that one - the kitchen, I think. I hope you do rent from them and get to meet them - they are a wealth of info on all the nooks and crannies of the neighborhood. And do go to Restaurant Tiger if you end up renting in the neighborhood - D&S recommended it to us and it is wonderful.

By the way, did you check out the NYT article about the 9th? http://travel2.nytimes.com/2005/02/2...II0Vs5/PamJ9MQ

Robespierre

<b>mermaid</b>, with <u>my</u> resources, it would have to be a really intimate affair - about six, tops

mermaid_

Lutece, second goodie for today! I like the looks of that VRBO listing and the rental rate--$850/week, I think--is reasonable. And that view of Sacre Coeur is enough to make my heart melt. You know how some people like to have the view of the Eiffel Tower? For me, it's a view of the white domes of Sacre Coeur that does it. I think that would be a really nice apartment to stay in next visit to Paris.

Robespierre, you don't need to tell me what Paris real estate prices are! My husband pressed his nose to the glass of every real estate office we passed. Paris prices are like NYC prices. Are you just doing some wishful dreaming of buying, or is this in your long-range plans (if I'm not inquiring too closely)?

Dave_in_Paris

Robespierre,

In Paris, nothing is inexpensive, but the area around Place de la Republic is relatively inexpensive. I'd also look around Place Gambetta. Great food shopping there.

Dave_in_Paris

You could also do something very, very French and potentially less expensive, and purchase a viager. The owner(s) of a &quot;certain age,&quot; or past it, is reverse mortgaging his or her or their property. Viagers are sold either &quot;vide&quot; (unoccupied), so you take immediate occupancy or &quot;occupe&quot; (occupied) so you take possession when the seller or last of the sellers die. Viager ads (you can read a few in the online Particuler a Particuler mentioned in earlier posts) list the seller's age, since life expectancy is a key to the financial details of the transaction. There's an upfront payment called the &quot;bouquet&quot; (I love that term) and then an agreed monthly payment until the seller passes away. Those payments are indexed to protect the seller from inflation. In advertisements, the ages of the sellers are often y described in this sort of phrase: &quot;deux tetes, 74 and 72&quot. This may strike you as goulish, but provides a way for elderly people of limited means to have additional, guaranteed monthly income (by slowly withdrawing the capital from their real estate), and if the sale is &quot;occupe&quot; (in which case the financial terms will be much more favorable for the buyer) the seller still can stay for life in his or her home . There are specialty real estate agencies in Paris that do nothing but these kinds of transactions. And there was considerable heart-warming press coverage of a case a few years ago, in which the seller outlived the much younger buyer!

ckenb

I looked into the viager system. The danger is that the occupant of the apartment or other property you buy this way will outlive you! You can end up paying for the rest of your life and never get use of the apartment.

Jeanne Calmant, the French woman who died at age 123 a few years ago had such a deal. She easily outlived the buyer, and I believe his heirs had to keep paying until Jeanne passed away.

The other danger with viager deals or even mortgages is the unpredicatble exchange rate. Unless you have income in euros, it's better to pay cash when you buy -- oh well, maybe not right now. Depends on whether you think the dollar has hit its lowpoint against the euro yet.

Dave_in_Paris

Ken,

There is indeed a possibility of the seller of a viager outliving the buyer (but wouldn't it sort of neat in that case to be helping to support an even-more-elderly-than-you, and possibly more needy, French person?) At any rate, you can purchase a viager &quot;libre,&quot; in which case you have full use of the property immediately. And if the seller does outlive the purchaser, the property eventually will pass into ownership of the purchaser's heirs.

Dave_in_Paris

Above should have read &quot;wouldn't be sort of neat&quot; -- or if you prefer, &quot;wouldn't it be a consolation&quot; ....

Dave_in_Paris

And in that first post on viagers, I sould have written, that you can purchase one &quot;libre&quot; or &quot;occupe&quot;

ckenb

Well, Dave, it might be a consolation to know that you are supporting a needy French elderly person, but if you really wanted a place in France you'd be out of luck. I think a viager libre costs considerably more than a viager occup&eacute;, too.

I had a line on a viager near S&egrave;vres-Lecourbe and I actually made an offer (which was refused) before I came to my senses.

Have you seen the movie called Le Viager starring Michel Serrault? Hilarious. He outlives everybody in his &quot;sold but not yet&quot; property&quot; on the C&ocirc;te d'Azur.

Dave_in_Paris

Ken,

It's true that a viager libre costs more. It's also unlikely that an expatriate is going to make a viager purchase (we did look at a few over time and came very close once). But I don't understand how a viager libre purchase could leave a person &quot;out of luck&quot; unless you mean with the risk of paying more rather than less, over the long term. Mostly, it's just an interesting, and as you noted, even enteraining, twist in French real estate transactions.

Dave_in_Paris

Since I've tugged and shoved this string into aracane matters, I'll allow my self (as the French say) to go a bit further. There is a category of real estate in France, &quot;residences avec services,&quot; that could, possibly, be of interest to expatriates thinking of long-term residence here. If you look in the on-line Particular a Particular listings, you will see a few listings of these under the residences services rubric. These are apartment buildings constructed with the elderly or near elderly in mind, that also offer services such as cleaning, linens, fully paid utilities and in-building restuarant meals, and sometimes an on-site nurse service. Depending on the residence, especially its location, the sale prices can be strikingly low. I've seen, fairly recently, recapitulations of auction sale prices of 20,000 euros or less for one- or two-bedroom apartments. Why? Because the monthly charges in these places are quite high. (Some offer a palette of services that allows for holding the monthly charges down). A family whose elderly relative has passed away may be eager to sell the now-vacant property to relieve themselves of service charges that continue even if the apartment is vacan. But a person who is planning long-term residence in France and has substantial monthly income, but perhaps not the savings or home equity required for a traditional purchase, could very well be interested. There are such residences in Paris, as well as the provinces. Just another little-known wrinkle in the market.

Dave_in_Paris

Here are average prices per square meter, in euros, for apartments more than five years old in Paris, by the arrondissement. Data published March 3, 2005, by the biweekly financial magazine Challenges. (In Paris, the average one-bedroom apartment is roughly 35 to 55 square meters.)

1st, 5,694; 2nd, 4,845; 3rd, 5,204; 4th, 6.342; 5th, 5,801; 6th, 7,045; 7th, 6,357; 8th, 5,653; 9th, 4,482; 10th, 3,769; 11th, 4,189; 12th 4,273;
13th, 4,264; 14th, 4,660; 15th, 4,820;
16th, 5,308; 17th 4,357; 18th, 3,724;
19th 3,232, 20th 3,614.

There also are average-price variations from neighborhood to neighborhood within arrondissements. Beyond that some factors that affect prices are ease access to shopping and public transportation, quality of the apartment building, floor the apartment is on, elevator, if present, exposition (quality of the light) and renovation required.

Challenges quizzed a number of realty companies about their outlook on prices in Paris over the next six months. The consus was no rise, or drop, in prices, except for the 9th, 10th, 11th and 12, where the consesus was that prices would rise over the next six months.

111op

Thanks for taking the time to compile the data, Dave.

Interesting. I guess I overestimated my prices a bit, but then, not by much. I claimed $10,000 per square meter in the best area and was off by 20%, but I guess that's not too bad for a cursory look and being conservative. Looks quite similar to NYC prices, actually.

(As mentioned, 1 sq m = 10.67 sq ft and take the avg price for the 7th arr = 6357 per sq m (in euros) = 6357 x 1.3 / 10.67 = $775 per sq foot.)

Personally I'm a bit surprised that the 7th arr is the priciest. Maybe it's got the best &quot;uniform&quot; housing stock. Personally would have guessed 4th or 8th.

Obviously the weak dollar makes these prices seem higher.

Does anyone know much about buying an apartment in Paris and renting it out? My feeling is that it's quite tough to kick a tenant out in Paris.

Also, what about a rent/buy analysis? My feeling is that rents can be fairly low in Paris.

111op

Oops -- actually 6th has the highest prices -- which I guess is still surprising.

7045 = $858 per square foot.

Getting up there now....

111op

Not to take the discussion too far afield, I'm also curious to know how much housing prices in Paris have appreciated. I guess it's fairer to do the analysis in Euros/French Francs.

NYC prices strike me as really high, but then, really Paris prices are quite comparable. The NYT actually published an article on speculation in the US housing market --

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/01/national/01spec.html

Thoughts about whether this applies to the Paris housing market?