You’ll have been reading the press, it’s tempting to believe what they say I know I tend to. It’s just that when they talk about things that you know about you really start to wonder where they get their information from. Here are a few examples that concern me.
1. Property prices are dropping. No they are not. It would be a fair assumption to make “in the circumstances”, as far as the ski towns of the Haute Savoie go they they are stable.
2. You can’t get a mortgage. Yes you can. In fact the banks are crying out to loan money. They are finding it hard though. Mainly because the majority of buyers in the French Alps are buying with cash, this comes as a surprise to many, it’s true though. The reasons for this deserve another blog article!
3. Francois Holland is going to tax foreign property owners to death. We can’t respond to this one as yet. The British press would certainly have you believe this but nothing has been set in stone yet and in fact most of the headlines are plain wrong. I’ll definitely be writing more on this subject as we know more!
As far as point one is concerned we have received the following advice from the bank we work with, under the title “There is always a good reason to take a French mortgage”
- Leave equity in your UK property. Borrowing money in the UK against your UK property doesn’t leave you with much equity for the future. You never know when you might need the value tied up in the main home.
- If you are buying an expensive property (so around the 1m mark and more) then taking out a mortgage can reduce your exposure to the French ISF Tax and to tax on rental income.
- Assuming you have recently bought (so within 6 months for an existing property and 12 months for a new build) then the bank can still lend, this usually happens when someone has bought a property with their cash and they subsequently think of something else to do with their money! They then take mortgage and move on to the next investment.
The next question is “what are the rates”, the French really don’t like to publish these, there are so many variables and they are fearful of “false advertising” legislation. It’s fair enough, there is nothing more annoying to see a rate of 2.95% advertised and then when you have filled out your application to discover that “for you” it will be 3.95%! Actually that should be a clue. It’ll be between those two numbers.
Here is an apartment in Chamonix to consider.
Appt. Beradis, Price 179 000 €uros
Location, central Chamonix, floor area 27 m²
Click on the image for full details.
