As you can imagine the current state of the market for property in the Alps is high on our list of topics of conversation. We are always happy to express our opinion to anyone that asks. It’s normally journalists, though sometimes it’s people looking to buy. In the second case I often get the feeling that the buyer thinks they are hearing too much “spin” as the reality on the ground in the Alps often differs marketly from the reality where the buyer happens to live.
This morning we had a long conversation with the bank we work with. BNP Paribas they commission a yearly report on the subject and the results are just out. A summary is available on their website. As is always the case with these reports, the figures are already out of date, they deal with 2010. A more current view can be obtained by talking to the agents to get their gut feelings and anectotal quotes.
This view comes for free with a very reasonable priced “estate” in Chamonix.
So here are some quotes from Alpine Property. They concern the area we cover, so the Haute Savoie, which includes the likes of Chamonix, St Gervais, Megeve, La Clusaz, Grand Bornand, Samoens, Les Carroz, Flaine, Les Gets, Morzine, St Jean d’Aulps and Chatel.
“The Swiss are buying in the Northern Alps, it’s not a surprise, the Swiss Franc is so strong they can buy 30% more than they could last year”
“The French are back! After a fairly long time out of the market they are happy to buy second homes,
“Francophone buyers make up 50% of our sales”
“There are plenty of people out there willing to invest 1m+ euros in second homes in the Alps”
“The summer is now almost as important as the winter, that’s not to say that the summer market in the Alps would exist without the winter market, it’s just that the modern Alpine purchaser values the summer activities almost as highly as the winter ones”
Chalet Sochi, shown here as an illustration of what is available at the top end of the market, full details on the Alpine Property website.
That’s 5 quotes, that’ll do for now. My comments as far as the BNP report goes are that in 2010 the market recovered from 2009. In fact we would say the market crashed in 2008 (that’s not news), this hit the 2009 figures hard and now the figures for property sales in 2010 illustrate the good recovery, almost back to the peaks of 2007. We can add to that and say that 2011 will be better still.
As far as prices go we saw some quite significant price falls in the outlying towns, they have stabilised now but there are still some great bargains to be had. For instance take a look at:
Chez Patou, 295,000 €uros in St Jean d’Aulps
Full details can be found at the Alpine Property website.
Even in the established towns such as Morzine there are bargains, look at the following property, we haven’t seen anything like this (at this price) for 5 years.
Chalet Amis, 399,000 €uros in Morzine
Full details can be found on the Alpine Property website
This all sounds quite upbeat doesn’t it? The property sales bear this out. The owners know this too, they are pricing their chalets “to sell” but not negotiating a whole lot. This might sound surprising to the British buyer who is fed a constant stream of gloom from the press. There are plenty of people who instead of investing their money in the stock market or gold are putting it into the euro in the form of bricks and mortar.
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Posted by Gareth 
