Les Chteaux and Chouettes of Burgundy

I’m still catching up on sleep after staying up all Tuesday night to watch the election results, celebrating the new president elect by popping the cork on a good bottle of champagne with friends at 7 a.m. Wednesday! The Mairie of the 3rd arrondissement held an all night event to celebrate the U.S. election along with its American friends and neighbors. Mayor Pierre Aidenbaum greeted the long line of residents who came to participate. Read all about it in Wednesday’s Parler Paris by clicking here: https://adrianleeds.com/wp-content/uploads/newsletters/parlerparis/issues/pparis5-11-08.html. 
Paris Mayor Bertrand Delano had his own message to the American people — see the press release issued by the Htel de Ville just yesterday. Eighty percent plus of the French were rooting for Barack Obama…
A long awaited for Purchase Contract for our “sexiest” Fractional Ownership Property, Le Palace des Vosges, in the 400 year-old Place des Vosges, Paris’ best address (!!) is finally ready for all those who have expressed an interest. To learn more, visit https://adrianleeds.com/wp-content/uploads/newsletters/frenchproperty/fractional and to get a copy of the contract, email [email protected].
Next week here in Paris we will be filming the second part to the second House Hunters International program we’ve taken part in…highlighting the purchase of a studio apartment by an American couple that have renovated it and will be renting it for a profitable investment. Stay tuned for the story!…
Today’s French Property Insider focuses on a chteau in Burgundy up for auction, a Presbytery owned by author Jeffrey Greene, who lived to tell his tale of his adventures in Rogny-les-Sept-Ecluses and Leslie Caron’s Auberge, “La Lucarne aux Chouettes” (The Owl’s Nest), on the banks of the Yonne river. Learn more about the beautiful countryside in Burgundy and how you can have a chteau, presbytery, auberge or home of your own.
A bientt,

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

P.S. Pre-election fun was all afternoon at La Pierre du Marais during the special session of Parler Paris Aprs Midi. See http://www.adrianleeds.com/parlerparis  to read all about it! promised.

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Volume VI, Issue 45, November 6, 2008
In this issue:
* The Mayor of Paris and the President Elect
* How to Calculate Notaire Fees
* Discovering Bourgogne
* When and Where French Property Sales Smoked
* More Fun with Internet Maps
* A Personal Story in Burgundy
* French Property Fractional Offerings: Updated List
* Today’s Currency Update from Moneycorp: A New Special Report
* Hot Property Picks: Beautiful, Boundless, Burgundy
* How the Notaire Property Auctions Work
* Multi-Million Dollar Leaseback: COURTENBAS
* French Property Mortgage Assistance
* Parler Paris Apartments — Le Provenal
* Parler Paris Aprs-Midi: No Meeting This Month
* Managing Your FPI Subscription

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Press Release from Bertrand Delano, Mayor of Paris
November 5, 2008
Translation:
“The election of Barack Obama resounds like a formidable message of hope and awakening in a world lost and confused.
In the name of Paris and in my personal name, I thus salute this splendid victory and I have hopes his presidency echoes the hope of peace, of progress and of justice to which his plans, his name and his image are from now
on associated.
Politicall
y, this election puts an end to eight years of the Bush presidency, the Americans expressing with force their will of change, openness and action. Symbolically, it illustrates the force and the richness of a multi-cultural society, and how it can draw from all its resources.
Each one measures today the extent of the task which awaits the future president of the United States. Its program makes it possible to hope for a more just America, thanks to a real tax reform and with the introduction of a universal health system. On the international plan, the new American administration will be confronted with management of particularly sensitive issues like the resolution of the Iraqi conflict, war in the Middle East or the issues of the Iranian nuclear power. Europeans can see within the remarkable victory of the democratic candidate, prospect for more profitable, more constructive, more solidarity and of a dialog essential to the resolution of the major international problems, and of the universal protection of the environment.
This morning, in the announcement of this news which France hoped for, each one wants to believe like the newly president elect proclaimed: America can change!

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How to Calculate the “Frais de Notaires”
By Adrian Leeds
The term, “Notaire Fees,” often refers to both the taxes and legal fees you are obligated to pay when purchasing a property in France. Expect to pay between 7% and 8% of the purchase price of a resale property and about 3.5% for a new property, although VAT (19.6%) is also payable on a new property.
The registration taxes are approximately 5.5% of the total, and the rest is paid to the Notaire as his legal fees. The notaire fees are regulated by the government and vary according to the purchase price of the property. The higher the purchase price, the lower the proportionate amount of the fee.
If a mortgage is used to purchase the property, additional taxes and fees will be accrued. In addition, there may be other fees, depending on your personal situation, such as a fee to create an SCI, give power of attorney to someone to sign on your behalf, etc., not included in the normal fees.
 

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The Region of Bourgogne (Burgundy)
By Adrian Leeds

Burgundy is a region we quickly associate with some of the world’s finest wines, wonderful gastronomy (Boeuf Bourguignon, Escargot de Bourgogne), and beautiful canals and rivers.
The history of the region is fascinating, dating back to Paleolithic era and the Middle Ages. There area many magnificent buildings, scores of Romanesque churches and illustrious vineyards. The more mountainous area of Burgundy is perfect for walking, sailing and rafting, the gentler slopes of the Bresse perfect for cycling tours.
The many trout streams and lakes are perfect for fishermen. Riding, rock climbing, pot-holing, micro-lighting and ballooning are equally prevalent. The Burgundy Canal is more than 300 kms long making it a wonderful travel destination for barge cruises. Crossing Burgundy from the north to the south, the canal unites the river Seine to the Rhone.
Within a two-hour drive from Paris, you can be in heart of Bourgogne. The TGV (Train Grande Vitesse) is just 1 hour 37 minutes from Paris to Dijon…making it an easy weekend retreat for Parisians. Bourgogne consists of four departments: Cte-d’Or (21), Nivre (58), Sane-et-Loire (71) and Yonne (89).
Franco-American actress Leslie Caron (“Gigi,” “American in Paris,” “Father Goose” and “Le Divorce”) owns a lovely auberge called “La Lucarne aux Chouettes” (The Owl’s Nest) in Villeneuve-sur-Yonne…renowned for fine wines and dining and elegant accommodations decorated by Ms. Caron herself (online at http://www.lesliecaron-auberge.com/).
Poet and author Jeffrey Greene chooses to live in Burgundy, too — he, his wife, and mother moved into an 18th-century stone-built presbytery in Rogny-les-Sept-Ecluses about 14 years ago and “lived” to tell the tales of its renovation and becoming a part of the community in Rogny. Scroll down for a poignant excerpt from his memoirs, “French Spirits.”
In today’s issue, we offer Part I of an excerpt from “French Spirits,” — with Part II to be published in next week’s issue, to give you an inkling of what life could be like in this beautiful region of France.

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Company Reports Busiest Month of Year for French Property
http://www.propertyshowrooms.com

French property firm VEF has reported that October has been its busiest month this year for property sales.
Discussing the events of this month, the company said that the areas recording the most sales were Charente and the Hautes-Alpes in Provence.
It said the Charente office has been
seeing a 60 per cent rise in sales from
a year earlier, a situation attributed to the increased accessibility of the area including more low-cost flights into Angouleme airport.
The firm also stated that prices in this region have now levelled out and offer “exceedingly good value for money”, while another region offering good prices is the Haute-Provence area, where the agency has recently sold a four-bed chalet for EUR300,000 (GBP236,000).
Co-founders of French real estate company home-hunts.com Francois Xavier de Vial told French property news earlier this month: “Contrary to what some people think, now is still a good time to buy French property.”
 

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The Atlas of the Real World
http://www.telegraph.co.uk
 
The Atlas of the Real World uses software to depict the nations of the world, not by their physical size, but by their demographic importance on a range of subjects. Here, we select a series of travel- and news-related maps.
* Land area
The size of each territory represents exactly its land area in proportion to that of the others, giving a strikingly different perspective from the Mercator projection most commonly used.
* Tourist destinations
The size of each country indicates the proportion of international tourist trips made there.
Western Europe receives 46 per cent of world tourist trips, while just 0.1 per cent of trips are made to Central Africa.
* Net incoming tourism
The size of each territory indicates the number of tourist trips made to that territory minus the number made from that territory to elsewhere.
 

* Housing prices
The size of each territory shows the total value of all housing, adjusted for local purchasing power.
Western Europe contains the most expensive housing, while Africa and South Asia has the cheapest, even after allowing for the fact that money goes further here.
Editor’s Note: To see the atlas in 18 forms, visit
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/picturegalleries/3109042/The-Atlas-of-the-Real-World.html

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The Presbytery, Part I
By Jeffrey Greene
From “French Spirits”
https://adrianleeds.com/wp-content/uploads/newsletters/parlerparis/books/booksaboutfrance.html

 
How is it that real estate agents know even before they look at you, as they shout on the phone to a colleague, that you are a waste of their time? They must develop a sixth sense to spot dreamers, like us, who know nothing about owning a house. The agents spend their days taxiing people around a particular region, fumbling with keys and feeling about for light switches, each house a disaster, a trap, a mystery, an answered prayer. They wipe spider webs out of their eyes, confuse the facts, answer each question with Je vais me renseigner, “I’ll find out for you,” knowing that they’ll never have to. Meanwhile their clients see themselves sleeping, eating, listening to music, bringing up children, getting drunk, making love in rooms that strangers have forsaken because of a job change or moving up, or in some cases divorce or death.
Mary and I, with our little white Maltese, Christabel, waited patiently to be noticed by a middle-aged man wearing a green checked jacket with an ochre shirt and dark green pants, a kind of uniform of the French salesman. Seizing the chance to impose herself before his next phone call, Mary announced, Monsieur, nous cherchons un moulin ou une petite masion, pas trop cher, pour restaurer, quelque chose sur le Cousin ou la Cure. We wanted a cheap house or old mill to restore, maybe on the Cousin or Cure rivers. We had lived long enough in France to know that all such negotiations begin with C’est impossible trouver. This conversation began with an equivalent: Quelle surprise, Madame. Tout le monde cherche la mme chose. Everyone is looking for the same thing.
Mary responded. “You’ve listed a mill in Mlusien, and we’re interested in learning more about it.” Touring nearby, we had seen the mill and noted the distinctive dayglo orange poster proclaiming A Vendre. We wrote down “Jean Rousselet, rue de Paris,” a small real estate office in Avallon. Undeniably, a picture of the mill was taped to his window, and it became all too clear to Monsieur Rousselet that his afternoon was as good as shot.</fon t>
Before the summer of ’92, Mary and I had never seriously considered owning a house together, so there must be a mental condition that could be called house buyer’s psychosis. No one can be rational about such a huge commitment or expense as buying a country house. That summer, we had both become stricken while staying in a relatively unknown region of northwestern Burgundy. Once the condition takes over, you begin to hallucinate. Maybe you see the ivy-covered house in the Burgundian rural landscape, the reality of a photo in a nerve-worn magazine stacked in your dentist’s waiting room. Maybe you see your life set in restorative pastoral calm and solitude of nineteenth-century painting and literature. You see a chance to live a second life, to re-invent yourself in another world. Or you see your rural childhood home, if you had one, your childhood river, a place to slip back to in middle age, into the reassurances of a remembered world. Unfortunately, your childhood home is long gone, and as you age, you become ever more tangled in the person you happen to be, no matter how many houses you acquire. Still, when looking at houses, you see many things that aren’t there.
For years Mary and I had visited French friends in their country houses along the Loire, in Normandy or in Burgundy. Our friends invariably badmouthed their places shamelessly–“Quel boulot!” “a cote une fortune!” Ce n’est jamais fini!” “Quel esclavage!” In turn, we’d answer the requisite and sincerely felt, “Quel Paradis!” as we sat in gardens, listened to songbirds in young fruit trees, or inspected the freshly finished rooms. We assumed that complaining in a state of happy slavery is one of the delights.
Editor’s Note:
Read Part II in next 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.
 

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