New Year? It gives you that feeling...what I used to describe as 'best handwriting first day of term! Stride out and realise the ambition that you feel you've been neglecting...too long.
Well, the first thing that strikes me about the beginning of 2015 is that the Exchange rate - Pound to Euro - is the best that it has been for six years! That in itself is amazing. I always find it hard to appreciate quite what celestial elements have to align to bring these changes about but, off the cuff, I get the drift that when the UK property market is up and the domestic market in France is down... the UK economy is doing well and the French economy is in the doldrums... employment figures are rosier in the UK and at the worst they have ever been in France... Then that means that there has never been a better time to buy something in France (not a used car salesman's ploy... honest).
Politicians are always taking a pasting from their electorate, it goes with the territory. And Francois Holland's popularity rating ranks with raw sewage in the flood water, cockroach infestation and Gary Glitter (Eee-ough). And yet - the good ship Blighty seems to be going in the right direction to be able to allow our target market (that's entrepreneurs, lively retirees, builder developers and the 'knit your own yoghurt' brigade - you know who you are) to react well to a fresh new sunrise (cue the bouncy music and the dancing girls) .... It puts me in mind of the early days, just after we started our business... Well priced properties were flying off the shelves and we thought we had struck gold! Recession and investment concerns that began with Northern Rock and 'Fred the Shred' etc., gave the nation good reason to hold their spending horses, served to lock up financial speculation and put it in a deposit account with no interest!. Things plateaued for a good few years and many agents gave up or went to the wall. But now it's 'come on in the water's lovely' and getting warmer by the month.
Francois is looking around for positive steps to stem the tide on his side of the channel and about to undo a career best gaffe by abolishing France's wealth tax which has been one of the sticking points for their economy... discouraging entrepreneurism, stemming ambition and expansion by small to medium sized businesses... The smart money is now on that this will thaw their economy and property prices will begin to rise again. So the window, which currently has a great view, is closing and those who feel it in their bones should not ignore the signs... There's bargains to be had and you know how the Brits like the January Sales!
A House in Brittany
A House in Normandy
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