News from the last 3 weeks.

April 20, 2009

I took a few days off with the family last week to visit London. The run up to this seemed quite hectic. Now I am back at my desk and decided to take stock of the new additions that Jo and I have added to the website.

The following list is all the new properties that have gone on-line in the last 3 weeks.

Chalets (10)

Chalet Servoz, a 4 bedroom property in the Chamonix valley.

Apartment Centre Ville, a small apartment or business slap bang in the middle of Samoens.

Apartment Bertrand, a 4 bedroom apartment in St Jean d’Aulps.

Apartment Chamois d’Or, a 3 bedroom apartment in the centre of Morzine.

Moulin de Trebillon, a stables with land not far from Evian and Lac Leman.

Chalet la Griaz, 3 bedrooms in Les Houches in Chamonix valley.

Chalet Iris, 5 bedrooms, 100m from a ski lift in Chatel.

Chalet Laer, 7 bedrooms, on the ski bus route in Chatel.

Chalet Cravarin, 6 bedrooms and great views in the Samoens valley.

Chalet la Toile, 4 bedrooms and great views in St Gervais

Land (4)

Land les Bollus, walking distance from the ski lift at Vercland, Samoens.

Land at Flerier, in a quiet setting by a lake near Taninges, Samoens valley.

Land du Buissons, good views on the outskirts of Essert Romand nr Morzine.

Land at Passy, cheap! About 20 minutes from Chamonix.

Renovation (1)

Farm Grevat, a farm building and 1620 m² of land, Essert Romand near Morzine


200 Properties for Sale

April 9, 2009

Alpine Property is approaching its 10th anniversary, but before we reach this milestone we have recently achieved another. This week is the first time we have had 200 properties available for sale on our website. In fact by Friday we’ll be on 205.

I know 200 doesn’t sound like a lot of properties for a web based agent. It is when you consider we operate like a traditional agent. We know each individual property and for each one we visit, take the photos and arrange a contract with the owner. We do not just “re-advertise” the properties for other agents.

It sounds like a lot to me. The reason for this is that Jo and I prepare the information and pictures and put each one on line. We have worked out how long (on average) each property takes to upload. Assuming we have to create a plan for the property (a lengthy task) then the whole process takes about 5 hrs.

So it made me wonder. How many properties have we put online in total? This is fairly hard to work out before 2002. And very easy to work out since 2002 (the year we went from a “static” HTML website to a “dynamic” database driven website). Since 2002 we have advertised 716 properties.

Thanks to Alexa’s “way back machine“, we can track how many properties where online on any given month since we went online. Here is the history for Alpine Property.

http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.alpine-property.com

This is also an interesting place to browse if you want to see what a property might have been worth 10 years ago!

So here is the data for number of properties visible on the website (so it includes properties “under offer”).  I’ve also added initials by the year each team member joined.

Spring 2000 – www.alpine-property.com goes online with 15 properties SN/CB which overed St Jean d’Aulps, Morzine, Les Gets and the Chatel Valley – AKA The Portes du Soleil

Spring 200124 properties GJ/JN

Spring 200228 properties – website mk 2

Spring 200332 properties

Spring 200437 properties  JD helping GJ

Spring 2005109 properties – website mk 3 DB/JC, adding Samoens, Chamonix, Megeve

Spring 2006110 properties VM, helping DB

Spring 2007112 properties LM, helping CB

Spring 2008160 properties – website mk 3.5 EC/RO, adding Les Carroz, La Clusaz and Le Grand-Bornand

Spring 2009220 properties

The initials stand for

  1. SN = Steve Norris
  2. CB = Claudia Buttet
  3. GJ = Gareth Jefferies
  4. JN = James Norris
  5. JD = Jo Davison
  6. DB = Denis Barbier
  7. JC = JC Skiera
  8. VL = Valérie Maes
  9. LM = Lee Massey
  10. EC = Emma Casanova
  11. RO = Richard Owens

Alpine Property news from the Portes du Soleil

March 12, 2009

Recent activity for the Portes du Soleil region (so that includes Morzine, Les Gets, St Jean d’Aulps and Chatel).

In March so far..

  • Maison des Gys « sous compromis »
  • Land in Bellecombe « sous compromis »
  • Chalet Clos « sous compromis »
  • Vielle Ferme « sous compromis »
  • A new development in Essert Romand launched at 2009 prices (not like 2008 prices!), so that means 3,500 euros / m² not 5,000 euros / m² a 30% reduction in new build costs.
  • Apartment Le Petite Tanière, down in price by 15% so now providing a potential 7% gross ROI
  • Apartment FlorAlp, down in price by 15% – so now providing a potential 8.5% gross ROI
  • Apartment Caroline, down in price by 15% as well.