Looking at La Loire and La Terre

It’s turned cool in Paris as Fall starts to set in and there is no shortage of activity in the City of Light to keep us all busy. This past weekend, we visited the Salon Immobilier de Paris and the 300 exhibitors eager to talk to the house-hunting crowds. Be sure to read more about it in today’s FPI.

Saturday, we had clients arrive for a one day whirl-wind apartment hunting expedition and by end of day they had found their dream pied-à-terre and had made an offer. By Monday the negotiations were complete and their offer was accepted!
Negotiating on property, particularly in Paris, is a tricky affair. If you offer asking price, the seller morally must sell it to you. You can offer less than asking and request first right of refusal should another potential buyer enter after you and offer asking price. At one time, this wasn’t allowed…so that anyone entering the bidding game offering asking price won, not matter when. Today is different…and just today, we made an offer on an apartment on behalf of an absent client at full asking price, but only after two other offers were being considered by the seller. Our client’s chances are slim, but still, we are keeping our fingers crossed as the apartment fits her needs to a tee.
This past weekend, our colleague Pascal Fonquernie with Parismarais.com, took a relaxing tour of the Loire Valley and discovered that he could live in Tours and other parts of the Loire for half the cost of Paris living. He was smitten with the châteaux and the beauty of the region. Today we bring you some of his favorite photos and a bit of information about La Loire along with some dream properties to consider making home.
Part II of Jeffrey Greene’s Presbytery will delight you in today’s FPI, and be sure to download the Google Earth program so you can pin point your pied-à-terre or country home in France for a bird’s eye view. On a serious note, read about the new Borloo law that affects rental property.
Enjoy!
A bientôt…

Adrian Leeds
Editor, French Property Insider
Email: [email protected]

P.S. If you’re in Paris, be sure to mark your calendar for all the upcoming events…including Parler Paris Après Midi on October 10th (https://adrianleeds.com/wp-content/uploads/newsletters/parlerparis/apresmidi.html) and the Expatica Welcome to France Fair October 15th (http://www.expatica.com/welcometofrance/).

================================
Volume IV, Issue 39, October 5, 2006

In this issue:
* Loire Valley Châteaux
* Checking Out the Salon Immobilier de Paris
* Rental Property and the New Borloo Law
* Pinpoint Your Pied-à-terre with Google Earth
* The Presbytery, Part II
* Côte d’Azur Still a Holiday Home Hot Spot
* On the Auction Block: October 17 and 24, 2006
* Living and Investing in France One-Day Seminar December 29, 2006
* Expatica’s Welcome to France Fair, October 15, 2006
* FPI Property Consultation, Search and Relocation Solutions
* New! French Property Consultation Concierge Services
* Today’s Currency Update from Moneycorp
* Next Parler Paris Après-Midi: October 10, 2006
* Hot Property Picks: Castles in the Loire
* Leasebacks: Residence Cannes Mandelieu Petit Lac, France, Mediterranean Coast
* Managing Your FPI Subscription
* Classified Advertising: Parler Paris Apartments
===============================
Exploring the Château of the Loire Valley
Last weekend, Pascal Fonquernie of Parismarais.com, took a tour of La Loire and a few of its most magnificent châteaux…Amboise, Azay-le-Rideau and Chambord. He took several beautiful photos along the ways which he shares with us today.
From Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia…
The châteaux of the Loire Valley (Val de Loire) number more than 300. They represent a nation of builders starting with the necessary castle fortifications in the 10th century to the splendor of those built a thousand years later. When the French kings began constructing their huge châteaux here, the nobility, not wanting or even daring to be far from the seat of power, followed suit. Their presence in the lush, fertile valley with its moderate climate, began attracting the very best lan
dscape designers. Before lo
ng, and to this day, the valley of the Loire is known as the “Garden of France.”
By the middle of the 16th-century, King Francois I, had shifted the center of power in France from the Loire back to the ancient capital of Paris. With him went the great architects, but the Loire Valley continued to be the place where most of the French royalty preferred to spend the bulk of their time. The ascension of King Louis XIV in the middle of the 17th-century made Paris the permanent site for great royal châteaux when he built the Palace of Versailles. Nonetheless, those who gained the king’s favor and the wealthy bourgeoisie, continued to renovate existing châteaux or build lavish new ones as their summer residence in the Loire.
The French Revolution saw a number of the great French châteaux destroyed and many ransacked, their treasures stolen. The overnight impoverishment of many of the deposed nobility, usually after one of its members lost their head to the guillotine, saw many châteaux demolished.
Today, these privately owned châteaux serve as homes, a few opening their doors to tourist visits, while others are operated as hotels or bed and breakfasts. Many have been taken over by a local government authority or the giant structures like those at Chambord are owned and operated by the national government and are major tourist sites, attracting hundreds of thousands of visitors each year.
 
 
The Châteaux of the Loire Valley:
* Château d’Amboise
* Château d’Angers
* Château d’Apremont
* Château d’Azay-le-Ferron
* Château d’Azay-le-Rideau
* Château de Beauregard
* Château de Blois
* Château de Boisclaireau
* Château de Bouges
* Château de la Bourdaisière
* Château de Brissac
* Château de Chambord
* Château de Chaumont
* Château de Chenonceau
* Château de Cheverny
* Château Chinon
* Château de Craon
* Château de Langeais
* Château du Lude
* Château de Loches
* Château de Montgeoffroy
* Château de Montreuil-Bellay
* Château de Montsoreau
* Château d’Oiron
* Château du Plessis-Bourré
* Château du Rivau
* Château de Saumur
* Château de Sully-sur-Loir
* Château d’Ussé
* Château de Valençay
* Château de Villandry
* Château de Villesavin
For more information, visit http://www.loirevalleytourism.com/
================================
Salon Immobilier de Paris Welcomes 27,000 Visitors
By Adrian Leeds
About 300 exhibitors filled the Espace Champerret on the north western edge of the city for the annual Salon Immobilier de Paris in anticipation of the 27,000 visitors they were predicting over the three weekend days, September 29, 30 and October 1.
The biggest names in French real estate were there — agencies such as Century 21, ERA and Guy Hoquet; management firms like Gestrim; the Chambre de Notaires and the associations such as FNAIM; publications such as Le Parisien and Libération; plus the lenders including UCB and financial counselors.
Here are a few things I learned while visiting the stands…
The average price per square meter in France for apartments is 2,801 euros and for houses 2,019 euros. This compares with Paris at 5,352 euros.
Prices have increased over the course of one year from May 2005 to May 2006 8.8% for apartments and 9.5% for houses.
The French are borrowing more money than ever before! Since 2004, borrowing has increased 18.7% and in 2005, a record 134 million euros were issued on credit.
Permits to build increased by 14% between March and May 2006 to construct 135,000 residential buildings.
In June 2006, the Borloo law was approved by the Senate June 30, 2006. (Scroll down to learn more about the Borloo Law.)
================================
The Borloo Law Adopted June 30, 2006 Affects Rental Property
Employment, housing and equal opportunities are the 3 major axes of the law on planning for social cohesion, known as the ‘Loi Borloo’ which entered into force June 30, 2006. Its main instigator, Jean-Louis Borloo, the Minister for Solidarity, Health and the Family in 2004 and now Minister for Employment, Social Cohesion and Housing since June 2nd defines it as follows: “An unprecedented approach consisting of dealing with all of the major problems that threaten the cohesion of our country at the same time.”
In housing area of the law, it has two types of provisions: those aimed at combating housing shortages, and those aimed at keeping occupants in their housing. The part of the law which will most concern owners of investment property is in regard to furnished property.
Until this law, the parties were in most cases able freely to establish the terms and conditions of the rental agreement and restrictions were only imposed if the landlord rented out more than four lodgings.
Under this very recent modification of the law, the obligations previously applicabl
e only to landlords who rented out more than four lodging
s have been extended to cover those rental agreements relating to furnished accommodation where the property is to be the tenant’s principal residence (therefore it will not apply to seasonal holiday lets).
The tenant must now benefit from a written agreement for a year’s rental period. The lease will tacitly renew for the same period and under the same conditions. However, upon renewal the landlord can propose modifications to the contract provided that the tenant is warned three months before the end. If the landlord does not wish to renew the contract, the refusal must be justified and the only acceptable reasons are to take the property back or sell it, or for a legitimate and serious motive (e.g. failure to pay rent). The tenant can, however, give notice at any time but must respect a notice period of one month.
These new provisions clearly represent a significant alteration in the law in this particular area.
================================
A Bird’s Eye View by Google Earth
By Adrian Leeds
Want to know where your dream home in France will be?…And I mean EXACTLY where it will be…down to what your new neighbors’ houses look like?
Google Earth technology now makes this possible. An innovative handful of real estate agencies are starting to use the technology to pin point the homes and apartments they are advertising so that their clients would “be able to orient themselves vis-a-vis key landmarks such as the distance from the coast or the nearest airport enabling them to make a better decision whether a given property might be for them.”
Real estate agencies across the globe are sure to follow suit. All you need to do is click here to download the software: http://earth.google.com/download-earth.html
Once you have installed the Google Earth program, you can explore just about any spot in the world and you will also be able to view interesting information contributed by other folks on the Web. (Anyone can publish content for Google Earth using their geographic markup language [KML].)
The two bird’s eye views shown here are 1) my own apartment in Le Marais and 2) the Eiffel Tower! Try it for yourself!
 
 
 
================================
The Presbytery
By Jeffrey Greene
From “French Spirits”
Part II
https://adrianleeds.com/wp-content/uploads/newsletters/parlerparis/books/booksaboutfrance.html

The idea of Mary and me owning a country home together was even more preposterous because we spent most of the year living on separate continents. When we got together, we lived in an unreal world of driving off to Italy on a whim or indulging in three Paris films on a given Sunday. One owns a country house to get away from the confines of the city and one’s place of work. One can let the kids go nuts.
The summer of 1992 Mary and I exhausted ourselves driving from Paris to Szeged in Hungary. We took up a long-standing invitation from Mary’s colleagues Erika and Péter to vacation there. As early as the 70s, Mary had worked with Hungarian scientists, who in spite of severely limited resources in materials and influx of techniques mainly from the outside, managed to maintain their strong scientific tradition. Mary had great respect for their commitment, and in turn they hung her picture up in the cafeteria of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences Institute. I had read and loved the poetry of Attila Jozef and Miklos Radnoti, whose tragic lives are legendary, and I was interested in the glories of Hungarian intellectual life that produced the likes of Leo Szilard and j2999eph Teller, former known for his work on the Manhattan project and the latter for the hydrogen bomb.
In 1992, the Russians had already pulled out of Hungary, leaving behind their unwanted statues and dismal barracks scrawled with graffiti. The government was desperately trying to privatize state holdings, while at the same time larger European companies were buying small Hungarian industries and terminating their operations to avoid competition from low-waged workers. The massacre in the Balkans was well underway, with refugees filtering over the border. Péter warned, “Stay on Rósza Ferenc under the lights while crossing Népliget Park.” The whole town seemed to be out strolling the paths, making love on the riverbank, or watching the outdoor movie theater, the projection filling the trees with huge figures and flickering scenes. We kept looking for refugees.
In spite of their difficulties, the Hungarians couldn’t have been more generous. The Institute in Szeged housed us near to the Tisza, which curved through the city in its deep riverbed toward Serbia, the border of which was obscured by trees down river. On the Buda side of Budapest, we had a room provided by the Hungarian Academy of Sciences near the Fisherman’s Bastion, where we could look down at the Parliament Building with its urchin-like spires high over the Danube or gaze over the hot sprawl of industrial Pest. Finally, we headed southwest to the Academy’s vacation facility, a nineteenth-century estate on the shore of Balaton, central Europe’s largest lake.
Balaton was Erika and Péter’s childhood dream world, the vacation sanctuary that glimmers with youthful parents, and brothers, sisters and cousins back in their child bodies. They could swim in waters that would rinse from their minds the war rubble and the strictures of life in the communist bloc. And, of course, each summer, years later, they brought their own child to sail, fish, or play tennis until the balls disappeared into dusk. For them
,
Balaton has the in
finite buoyancy to float the past and the present, while Mary and I, on our walks, were looking at all the wrong things. For one thing, Balaton that summer suffered algae problems, and large suffocated eels were drifting one after the other into shore. Then, to our amazement, we began to see among the rocks at the water’s edge green and brown snakes. We saw them everywhere, the small males knotted around females, two or three weaving into the crevices, coils of others motionless together. In some places every rock had a snake warming itself in the sun. Because Mary loves the French expression for crawling or writhing with, she declared, Ça grouille de serpents!
“Are there always so many snakes here, Péter?” she asked.
“Where? In Hungary?”
“Here, of course, around the lake. You can see them from the esplanade. They cover the rocks. And there are eels washing up too.”
“I hadn’t noticed.” Péter was a little annoyed. This was the wide lake he’d swim across in his athletic glory days.
“They’re brown and green. They’re mating. You can’t miss them.” Mary can accept that people see what they want to see, but snakes and eels fit a special category. Furthermore, Péter was a biologist. Like Péter, the rest of Hungarians hadn’t noticed the snakes and eels either; they went about their hard-core and undoubtedly hard-earned vacationing, setting lines and tossing balls of meal into the opaque water to attract carp, a Hungarian favorite in soup, with paprika, of course.
Mary’s nature was to fixate, and I’ve often thought that this was the quality that made her gifted in science. One of her favorite lines, a quote from a pretentious teacher she had in high school, is “It’s intuitively obvious to the most casual observer.” However, when she said it, rarely did anyone know what she was referring to. In any event, she couldn’t recruit Erika and Péter to go snake watching.
We stayed at Balaton for a couple of days, strolling the esplanade counting snakes before driving back to Austria. Then the rains came, as if to wash us out of central Europe. We held on for two nights in Baden, a town of healing baths and rose gardens on the outskirts of Vienna, but after the second night we drove in a cloud of truck spray the grueling 600 kilometers through Austria and Germany. We had decided to reward ourselves with quick visit to Alsace.
At eight in the evening, we pulled up at Chez Klein’s in Beblenheim, one of our favorite chambres d’hôtes, with its half-timbered buildings that mix together a wine bar, a workshop for antiques, and guest rooms. The rooms are furnished with restored antiques, all painted in traditional Alsacian style and all with price tags, so the rooms tend to change if you go there a few times. That evening we crossed a stretch of tall full-leafed vineyards down to Ostheim, a village with a huge stork’s nest on top of a bombed out wall that was left as a war memorial. Ostheim has a great little family restaurant that practically no one knows about and is only open on weekends. That night in the middle of our Poulet au Riesling, lightning crashed into town, turning the rest of the evening into a candle-lit affair, with reverent murmuring, guarded laughter, and a child crying in the background. We walked out to find Christabel wide-eyed on the dashboard as if she’d seen the destruction of the world.
Our final destination was Chagny in Burgundy’s Saône et Loire, a region that Mary taught me to love, with its gentle hills sloped south and east with the world’s most precious vineyards of Pinot Noir and Chardonnay grapes and small stone villages, each with a simple Romanesque tower.
Mary and I had been coming to Burgundy since we met in 1986, and at least once a year we recklessly spend two nights at Lameloise, a three-star restaurant with a hotel. Mary knew the family from the time that they ran a small one-star restaurant that had a 25 franc menu–escargots, coq au vin à la Bourguignonne, and a dessert that promised to be just as light as the preceding dishes. She and Boris Ephrussi, Mary’s former mate, would spend evenings indulging in the traditional Burgundian cooking and walking through Chagny’s long evenings frenetic with swallows.
I’ve seen pictures of Boris, tall, almost condor-like, receiving medals from the French Academy of Sciences or young and serious–his intensity an anomaly in the drawer full of our vacation photographs. Because he spent the late part of World War II planning air raids on bridges for the RAF, two other scientists followed up on some of his findings on the “one gene and one enzyme” theory to claim what Boris considered his Nobel Prize. Boris died from a mysterious ailment reminiscent of Tolstoy’s Ivan Ilych’s. I can’t help but think in awe of them–Boris, the old-world intellectual and charmer, the surviving relic of one of Europe’s grimmest centuries, embittered in the end, and Mary, a fresh, energetic American, decades younger, held under his spell, her love a mixture of forces. The pleasures of Burgundy were theirs. Mary introduced me to them.
Lameloise is not just a three-star restaurant and luxury hotel; it’s a conspiracy. You might imagine pretensions, airs of extravagance, hints of aristocratic elegance, but instead you are invited to notice perfections as if they just naturally occur there, from the flower arrangements to a light, brilliant Volnay, from the escargots in ravioli speckled with truffles to the meticulously selected and cured fromages de chèvre of the region, from the foie gras surprise in a cabbage leaf beside pigeonneau rôti to the charlotte aux poires. Meanwhile Monsieur Daniel, the maître d’hôtel who over the years has personally assumed responsibility for our culinary education, passes on names and addresses of small viticulteurs, as if we were involved in espionage.
On Mary’s request for the latest intelligence, Monsieur Daniel responded without hesitation, “Maurice Ecard’s Savigny-Les-Beaune, Jean Boillot’s Volnay or René Gras-Boisson’s Saint Roman or Meursault. These might interest you, Madame.“ On his next pass by the table, he leaves a card with the information written out. It was also Monsieur Daniel who said, Tout en étant cher, c’est bon marché. “While a
meal at Lameloise is expensive, it is at the same time a bargain.” Just our kind of logic. At some point, Jacques Lameloise will appear to explain the dishes we had eaten, as if their essence were simply a matter of chemistry; the experiment can never be verified at home.
Before we go up to our room, the patronne Madame Lameloise fills us in on the family dramas and triumphs that have transpired over the year. After such an evening we can’t help feeling that we belong to the place. No one is more contented with the Lameloise conspiracy than Christabel, who has a special fondness for large beds and rooms with couches and cushy rugs, particularly after days grilling on the hot, dusty roads in Hungary and being rattled by storms in Alsace.
We spent our one full day in the Saône et Loire weighing down our Peugeot with cases of Savigny and Chassagne-Montrachet and then touring churches and monasteries. When we left for Paris, we started out on “green roads,” those scenic routes indicated on Michelin maps. We drove through the wine villages of Meursault and Pommard before heading northwest into hills along the Bois de la Chaume, where we came to Lusigny sur Ouche, a small, irresistible village near the source of the Ouche River. There couldn’t be more than twenty stone houses built on the hill. The river, so near to its source, runs limpid through the town, trout darting among the shadows. In spite of the varnished wood boxes with floppy white and pink petunias mixed with snapdragons, the town didn’t seem touristic. It was couched next to a tall forest of pine, hornbeam and chestnut trees. Meanwhile below, the Ouche forms a valley that eventually leads to the Canal de Bourgogne.
It’s no surprise that Lusigny would be exactly the sort of village that Mary and I would like to buy a small house in, and as if we had willed it a ruined mill appeared in the center of town, its front door posted à vendre. Mary and I walked back and forth inspecting the little ruined mill. We looked over the stone wall into its enclosed garden that had grown wild around several arthritic fruit trees and a deserted blue swing set. We stood on one of the stone bridges and watched the river rush along the side of the building. We even tried to peek in through one window where 1830 had been chiseled and could see nothing through the locked shutters. Finally, we found a phone booth and called the number copied from the for sale sign. A woman informed us, somewhat apologetically, that the building was gutted and the price was 450,000 francs.
We walked down to the crossroads of the town where the millrace joined a larger stream, and then we strolled back up into the cool shaded forest. Over lunch in Lusigny’s one restaurant, we discussed the pros and the cons of the little mill. Mary, getting a little concerned, declared, “It’s too far . . . it’s too expensive . . . and it’s too ruined!” She knew that in my head I was already engineering floors and rooms. In spite of my unruly dreaming, I had to agree with Mary. Buying the mill was out of the question.
Editor’s Note:
Read Part I in last week’s French Property Insider.
Jeffrey Greene is the author of a memoir French Spirits (Morrow/HarperCollins AU-NZ/Harper Perennial/Bantam/Prometheus 2002/3), two books of poems, American Spirituals (winner of the 1998 Samuel French Morse Prize) and To the Left of the Worshiper (Alice James Books, 1991), and a poetry chapbook Glimpses of the Invisible World in New Haven (Coreopsis Books, 1995). He was a winner of the Randall Jarrell Prize and the “Discovery”/The Nation Award and received prizes from The Denver Quarterly and The Southern California Anthology. His work has been supported by the NEA, Connecticut Commission on the Arts, the Mary Rinehart Fund, and VSC. His poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in The New Yorker, Poetry, The Nation, Parnassus, The North American Review, The Sewanee Review, Ploughshares, The Southern Review, and many other journals and anthologies. A graduate of the Universities of Iowa (MFA) and Houston (Ph.D.), he has taught creative writing and literature at Golden Gate University, The University of Houston, Southern CT State University, the University of New Haven, and most recently the Goddard MFA program.
================================
Côte d’Azur Loses None of its Allure
By Cheryl Taylor
http://www.TheBusinessOnline.com
France can’t compete with emerging markets but new-builds and apartments are retirement and holiday home hotspots.
France is a hugely popular overseas investment destination despite the distraction of emerging markets such as Bulgaria and Croatia, according to the property investment company Assetz, which has experienced a 100% increase in French sales since January 2006.
The majority of investors want to make personal use of their property as a holiday home or somewhere to retire. Stuart Law, managing director of Assetz, says: “Hard-nosed investors might want the higher returns of Bulgaria, but they would not retire there. Quality destinations that offer an established infrastructure, culture and lifestyle, including excellent food and wine, continue to hold firm against their new competitors”…
To read the complete article, visit: http://www.thebusinessonline.com/the_investor/property/Stories
================================
Paris Auctions
http://www.encheres-Paris.com
Next session: October 17 and 24, 2006, 2 p.m.
Notaires de Paris
Place du Châtelet
12 avenue Victoria
Paris 1st
Additio
nal informat
ion on Les Ventes aux Enchères des Notaires can be found on the website at http://www.encheres-Paris.com/ Though the site has a button for an English version, it isn’t reliable to work.
To read Schuyler Hoffman’s article about the property auctions in Paris, click on:
https://adrianleeds.com/wp-content/uploads/newsletters/frenchproperty/insider/members/content/articles/auctions1.html
October 17, 2006
4 rooms 119,20 m²
12 rue des Nonnains d’Hyères
75004 PARIS 4th
Opening Bid: 643,200 €
Deposit: 128,640 €
 
 
 
2 rooms 38,9 m²
15 rue du Louvre
75001 PARIS 1st
Opening Bid: 170,000 €
Deposit: 34,000 €
 
 
4 rooms 76,30 m²
8 rue de l’Espérance
75013 PARIS 13th
Opening Bid: 330,000 €
Deposit: 66,000 €
 

October 24, 2006
2 rooms 32,50 m²
40 rue Monge
75005 PARIS 5th
Opening Bid: 160,000 €
Deposit: 32,000 €
 
 
3 rooms 59,50 m² rented
28 rue d’Enghien
75010 PARIS 10th
Opening Bid: 96,000 €
Deposit: 19,200 €

 
 
================================
Adrian Leeds, Parler Paris, French Property Insider and John Howell & Co. of International Law Partnership Present the…
Living and Investing in France
One-Day Seminar
December 29, 2006
Chez Jenny, Paris, France
If you’ve always dreamed of moving to France, starting a new life in Paris, enjoying a “pied-à-terre” of your own part of the year or perhaps investing in property in France, this power-packed seminar is a MUST. Hosted by Adrian Leeds, Editor of the Parler Paris Nouvellettre^® and French Property Insider weekly e-zine and John Howell, lead attorney for John Howell & Co., International Law Partnership, London, this one day in Paris will put you on the right footing to make it happen!
You will learn how to…
* Obtain the Right to Be in France!
* Buy and Own Property in France!
* Profit from the Leaseback Program, Corporate Housing in Paris (CHIP) and Other Investment Property Programs!
* Find Your Dream Apartment in Paris or Home in the Country!
* Get a Mortgage!
* Minimize Your Tax and Maximize the Benefits!
* Rent Your French Property for Profit!
* Reduce Your Currency Exchange Risk!
* Plus, answer all the rest of your questions during a Q and A panel with the presenters.
Details to be announced…to be on a special mailing list to be notified with complete information about the conference, email [email protected]/parlerparis?subjet=LIF_Paris_Dec_2006
================================
Welcome to France Fair
http://www.expatica.com/welcometofrance/
Welcome to France
October 15, 2006
Carrousel de Louvre
Paris, France
On October 15th Expatica will once again be hosting the Welcome to France Fair 2006 – the biggest fair for expats in France.
Over 2,000 expats attended last year’s Welcome to France Fair, and the 2006 event promises to be even bigger and better, with more stands, more entertainment and more information this time around!
*** See the French Property Insider Consultation and John Howell of International Law Partnership booth number 55/56 next to the entertainment area and stay for our presentation with John Howell and Adrian Leeds at 3:45 p.m.:
Getting Ready to Find Your Dream Home in France:
Part I. Setting Up the Legal Structure to Minimize Inheritance Tax by John Howell, The International Law Partnership (John Howell & Co.), http://www.JHCo.org, The Specialist in International Law…
and
Part 2. How to Finance Your Dream Home in France by Adrian Leeds, French Property Insider Consultation (Adrian Leeds Group, LLC), https://adrianleeds.com/frenchproperty/insider, The Complete Solution to Finding, Buying and Renting Your New Home in France
Tickets 10 Euros
Sign up for your tickets NOW at http://www.expatica.com/welcometofrance
===============================
Property Consultation, Search and Relocation Solutions
https://adrianleeds.com/wp-content/uploads/newsletters/frenchproperty/consultation
Let French Property Insider expert property consultants find your dream home in France for you. We consult with you to help you make the best decisions, ferret out the finest properties to meet your criteria, schedule the visits and accompany you, negotiate with the agencies and owners, recommend the Notaires and other professionals, schedule the signings and oversee the purchase with you from start to finish! You could never do it so easily on your own. Let us take the time and effort off your hands.
FPI Offers More Relocation Solutions!
Moving to Paris? Our experienced relocation expert will make your move easy and hassle-free. We offer complete property and relocation services normally only provided by employer hired relocation firms…but at a price much more affordable for individuals.
Download Complete Brochure
https://adrianleeds.com/wp-content/uploads/newsletters/frenchproperty/consultation/fpibrochure.pdf
NEW! Concierge Services
French Property Insider Consultation now offers a range of Concierge Services. You can trust our team of professionals to help you take care of your Paris property investment when you’re not in France. https://adrianleeds.com/wp-content/uploads/newsletters/frenchproperty/consultation/concierge.html
===============================
       

TODAY’S CURRENCY UPDATE
Visit the FPI Web site and click on the link on the left panel or click here for Currency Convertor by Moneycorp: https://adrianleeds.com/wp-content/uploads/newsletters/frenchproperty/insider/moneycorpconvertor.html
for up to the minute conversions of all major currencies.
Compare currency values easily and quickly by visiting:
https://adrianleeds.com/frenchproperty/loan/moneycorpconvertor.html
Charts
http://www.Moneycorp.co.uk/members/charts.asp
The charts below are updated every ten seconds.
The prices shown are “inter bank” exchange rates and are not the rates that you will be offered by Moneycorp. Your rate will be determined by the amount of currency that you are buying. Please speak with an Moneycorp dealer or your consultant for a live quotation.
===============================
Parler Paris Après-Midi
https://adrianleeds.com/wp-content/uploads/newsletters/parlerparis/apresmidi.html
NEXT MEETING: October 10, 2006 AND EVERY SECOND TUESDAY OF THE MONTH, 3 p.m. to 5 p.m.
This is your opportunity to meet every month, often with local
professionals who can answer your Working and Living in France questions. You are invited to come for drinks and share your questions and comments about what it takes to create a life here, own property and enjoy what France has to offer. It is also an opportunity to network with other Parler Paris readers.
Upstairs at La Pierre du Marais
96, rue des Archives at the corner of rue de Bretagne, 75003 Paris
Métro Lines 9, 3 et 11, stations Temple, République or Arts et Métiers
===============================
HOT PROPERTY PICKS: Castles in the Loire
Each week French Property Insider features a range of properties which we believe are on the market at the time of writing. These properties are featured in order to give readers a sample of what is currently available and a working example of prices being asked in various regions of France and districts of Paris.
As we are not a real estate agency. These properties do not constitute a sales listing. For those readers seriously interested in finding property in Paris or France, you can retain our services to do the whole thing for you. For more information, visit https://adrianleeds.com/wp-content/uploads/newsletters/frenchproperty/consultation
*** Maine-et-Loire, Château
This 19th century château with its own parkland. With a large entrance hall, ornate ceilings, original wooden floors, grand staircase, library/pool room with views over the garden, dining room, large, equipped kitchen, laundry, 10 bedrooms (2 en-suite), office and wine cellar. Heated swimming pool, jacuzzi, pool terrace and tennis courts.
Asking Price: 1,953,000 € + 2.5% Finder’s Fee
 
*** Anjou, Château, approx. 1500m²
An 18th century c
hâteau with a 2 hectare la
ke, 155 hectares of land with woods and meadow, and several outbuildings. With an entrance hall, dining room, 4 reception rooms, kitchen, 12 bedrooms and large usable attic, plus swimming pool and cave. The outbuildings include a manor and a farm, plus a garage and further parking.
Asking Price: 2,200,000 € + 2.5% Finder’s Fee
 
 

*** Tours, Château, approx. 1600m²
An imposing, attractive château with entrance hall, lounge with fireplace, dining room, library, smoking room, office, kitchen. The main floor also has 2 bedrooms with en-suite bathrooms and a toilet. The first floor has 5 bedrooms, all with bathrooms, and a 2 bedroom apartment with a bathroom and small lounge. The second floor has 4 bedrooms, a linen room, dressing room and the possibility of a further 7 bedrooms.
Asking Price: 3,080,000 € + 2.5% Finder’s Fee
 
===============================
LEASEBACK NEWS FROM IMOINVEST
https://adrianleeds.com/wp-content/uploads/newsletters/frenchproperty/insider/sales/leasebacks/lb_list.php
RESIDENCE CANNES MANDELIEU PETIT LAC
France, Mediterranean Coast, Mandelieu
Studio 29m² to 29m² €212,000 to €212,000
One Bedroom 38m² to 51m² €243,000 to €362,000
NEW LISTING
LEASEBACK PROPERTY
GUARANTEED RENTAL INCOME UP TO: 4.00%

4 STAR VIEWS OVER GOLF COURSE
Excellent location only 5 minutes from the beach, steps away from the Golf Club of Cannes Mandelieu and minutes from the Golf Riviera club. Just 7km from Cannes situated along the French Riviera, 20km from Antibes and 38km from Nice! Mandelieu La Napoule is the Mediterranean’s premier golfing resort and an all-round “Active Holiday Resort” with a whole range of sports and leisure facilities. Perfect area for tourists who love to golf, or visits can include the nearby Esterel Mountains, Barbossi Estate, Tanneron Mountains or the Lerins Islands.
Residence le Petit Lac enjoys views over the Cannes Mandelieu Golf Course. It also borders the sandy beaches of Cannes, the Mediterranean Sea and is set around a beautiful 2 acre lake. From the development it is only a short walk to the charming seafront village of La Napoule with its marina, Chateau, casino and over 20 restaurants to choose from. A 10 minute drive takes you to the centre of Cannes with the glamour of the Croisette and its multitude of shops or to the old town – the Suquet where you can sample the best French cuisine at reasonable prices. For flight accessibility, Nice Airport is only 20 minutes away. This gated domain has excellent facilities including an indoor spa and wellness centre with massage treatments, steam room, sauna and Jacuzzi, 550m² of outdoor swimming pools, with pool house and bar, tennis courts, children’s play areas, beach volleyball, boules pitch, conference centre, and a restaurant.
This development is backed by a very strong management company and developer. The resort is situated around a park of 6 hectares with a vast lake and parking is available. The completion date is scheduled for June 2008. The residence offers a pool, tennis court, hammam and spa facilities. Clients will receive a complete refund of the tax paid on the property and receive an attractive rental income for a minimum of 11 years. Owners may use the property for vacations and take advantage of the fantastic surroundings!
=============================
SEEKING A MORTGAGE IN FRANCE?
Let us help you secure a mortgage in France with interest rates as low as 3%. Visit http://www.frenchpropertyloan for more information or email [email protected]
=============================
Managing Your French Property Insider Subscription is Easy!
We receive many emails from French Property Insider Subscribers who want to change their email address, or update personal information. But did you know that you can make these changes yourself?
It’s easy…
1. Go to https://adrianleeds.com/frenchproperty/insider
2. Click on “Manage Subscription.” You’ll find it under the “Subscribers Only” section in the sidebar.
3. Enter your username and password.
4. On the Welcome Page, go to “Manage Your Account” and click on “Change Password/Edit Profile”
5. Once you’ve made the changes, scroll down to the bottom of the page and click on “Save Profile.”
Simple!
Of course, we’re always happy to help, so if you do need assistance, send an email to [email protected]
================================
INSIDER PARIS GUIDES DISCOUNT FOR FPI SUBSCRIBERS
Remember, as an FPI Subscriber you can take advantage of a special discount on the popular Insider Paris Guides, plus get an extra 15% discount when ordering two or more guides. Choose from:
* Leeds Good Value Guide to Paris Restaurants by Adrian Leeds
* Insider Guide to Practical Answers for Living in France by Jean Taquet
* Writers Insider Guide to Paris by Elizabeth Reichart
* Insider Guide to Black Paris by Melinda Herron
Just visit http://www.insiderparisguides.com. When you order, a box will pop up allowing you to enter the special FPI Subscribers discount code:
Username: fpi
Password: subscriber
You’ll receive download instructions, then just save the guides to your computer. Happy reading!

================================

THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW

To access password protected pages: click on any of the links on the left panel of the home page of FrenchPropertyInsider.com under “Subscriber’s Only,” then type in your personal username and password.

Past issues of FPI are available on the website. You will find the
“Past Issues” link on the left under “Subscribers Only” or by going to
https://adrianleeds.com/wp-content/uploads/newsletters/frenchproperty/insider/members/content/pastissues/index.html
To receive your free French Leaseback Report or the Paris Property
Report, click on
https://adrianleeds.com/wp-content/uploads/newsletters/frenchproperty/insider/members/content/reports.html

================================

HELPFUL CONVERSIONS FOR REAL ESTATE

1 square meter = 10.7639104 square feet

1 hectare = 2.4710538 acres

For more conversions, refer to: http://www.onlineconversion.com/

==== CLASSIFIED ADVERTISING ===

PARLER PARIS APARTMENTS
https://adrianleeds.com/wp-content/uploads/newsletters/parlerparis/apartments

Welcome to your home in Paris. Home is how you will feel in a private apartment in Paris that has the “seal of approval” from Parler Paris Apartments and me, Adrian Leeds.
Parler Paris Apartments are primarily properties in central Paris owned by our own clients and readers (investment-minded individuals) or managed by the agencies we have to come to know and trust over the years who can provide high quality accommodations to make your stay in the City of Light as enjoyable and memorable as possible. These are the kinds of owners and managers you can fully trust and they, in turn, are seeking trustworthy tenants such as yourselves, to welcome to their Paris homes.
We at Parler Paris know each and every apartment owner or manager personally. In many cases, we were instrumental in the purchase of these properties and therefore, stand behind the quality of those we represent. Because we’ve been working with Anglophone clients for many years who want to live and invest in France, we understand your needs and desires that make a rental apartment a warm and welcoming home — and a much better alternative to an impersonal hotel!
Parler Paris Apartments is administered and serviced by the same great team as Parler Paris, French Property Insider and French Property Consultation. You can trust that Parler Paris Apartments and all those with whom it is associated will do their best for your 100% guaranteed satisfaction.
Click here to learn more…https://adrianleeds.com/wp-content/uploads/newsletters/parlerparis/apartments

================================

SUBSCRIBE TO PARLER PARIS

If you’re not a regular reader of the Parler Paris daily e-letter, and would like to be, simply enter your e-mail address here (it’s free!): http://www.adrianleeds.com/parlerparis

================================

Copyright 2006, Adrian Leeds®
Adrian Leeds Group, LLC, http://www.adrianleeds.com