So, I think smugly, at least I am still a landlady in a European capital where prices are going up. In 2002, I bought my 52sq m one-bed flat in Pigalle (a jolly Parisian district full of supermarches erotiques) for €166,000 (£106,000). Buying it, and a modest refurb, cost £13,000. Prices in the area are now about £4,000 per sq m, so the flat is worth about £205,000.
Hooray, but it is rather academic, since I don’t want to sell. And I only manage to rent it (at £85 a night) for 50% of the year. My agent says I should have spent more; her two- and three-bed flats are full almost all year round. In the posh areas, prices are now up to about £5,800 per sq m and are still rising, albeit slowly.
But what about elsewhere in France? Most British owners say that renting in France — with one exception — is difficult to raise above the level of a hobby.
Let’s start in the north, with gîtes, which are at least cheap. After the heatwave of 2003, French holiday-makers decided to stop vacationing in boiling temperatures on the Med and revisited Brittany. Sadly, though, says Howard Farmer, of www.gites-in-france.co.uk, the following summer in Brittany was rather, er, British in temperature, and the trend died on its feet.
“The rental season is only 10 weeks long, and the market mostly a French one,” says Farmer. “Most gîte owners have to make their money in high summer. A lot of people don’t think seriously about making it a workable business. And it goes belly-up.”
Average weekly rental for a gîte? About £500, but you must have a pool and be near a low-cost air transport hub. “Down in the south, the season is longer, and you might get a weekly rent of about £2,000,” says Farmer, who advises investors to visit www.interhome.co.uk, which shows typical rental values.
Yet the traditional set-up of a gîte, typically a smaller home in the grounds of a larger one, suits an intense rental period. “A good move is to buy four or five units that you can rent out for the summer,” says Farmer. “A big house with several buildings for, say, £340,000, and rent the lot out. But you need to offer special features and you have to hand-hold some guests through the whole process.”
This suits some. Tony and Carole Hodgson own two gîtes near Dinard in Brittany, a two-bedder and a three-bedder, which they nobly vacate when guests arrive. “Yes, we decamp to a caravan,” says Hodgson, a former civil engineer. “But we like meeting people.”
He bought them eight years ago for £20,000 as a couple of ruins in 10 acres. The renovations cost him £100,000. They rent for £300 a week in winter and £450 in summer. There is no pool, and the coast is 30 miles off, which explains the low occupancy rate; 50% of the year for the smaller and 25% for the larger, but given the caravan situation, that’s probably just as well.
“We do it because we like living in France. And we have another income stream,” says Hodgson. “I would not advise anybody to do it as an independent financial enterprise. We are a little disappointed about the occupancy. It might be down to people getting on the bandwagon.”
In the Dordogne, the bandwagon is so full of Brits that you must go for the top end, advises Nathalie Grist, a Briton living near Périgueux. Her parents rent out La Brugère, their six-bed, five-bath manor. The bed/bath ratio gives it away. La Brugère is posh.
“My parents rent it for £1,200-£2,600 a week and let it for just 10 weeks a year. That covers its costs. Anyway, the market is totally saturated,” says Grist. “Everybody has come out here and bought a barn. The days of buying a very cheap property and living the dream life are over.”
It’s tough. Some owners say the season has gone from 16-20 weeks a year to about five. “You cannot live here on the rental income,” Grist continues. “Of course, there are areas like Limousin, where it is cheaper to buy, but it’s miserable.”
For those determined to invest, her advice is that if you have anything over two or three bedrooms, you need staff. And something special. “Nice linen, crockery, a wine cellar or a cook. If you offer a better service, you can get the same amount of income for fewer weeks of rent.”
La Brugère is recommended in one of Alastair Sawday’s guides, French Holiday Homes, which hand-picks memorable properties for well-heeled tourists. Sarah Bolton of Sawday’s says that for every private property that makes the grade, there are three that don’t. “We like touches such as an orchard where guests can help themselves, or a morning delivery of croissants,” Bolton says. “We want the home to feel like a family home, not a purpose-built money-spinner.”
High-end or not, you must be flexible. Bookings come weeks, not months, in advance. “Owners need to offer people last-minute breaks,” says Courtney Middleton of www.holiday-rentals.com, which has 3,774 French properties for rent, 98 of them in Paris. The firm constantly bombards its landlords with tips on how to make their property leap out at the casual tourist.
Display Baths and Beds Clearly, and Respond To Texts Quickly are two suggestions. “And update all the time,” says Middleton. “People leave their ads all year round and think that’s okay. It’s not! If it’s the ski season, don’t show off your summer pictures.”
So where is the best place to buy? It seems Coco Chanel and Scott Fitzgerald may have been right all along. EasyJet has only heightened the year-round charms of Nice.
In September, Iona Connor bought a little flat there for £59,000. It’s weeny: 19sq m. “It’s a duplex,” insists Connor, an air stewardess, “on the top floor of a 300-year-old building. I rent it at £410 a month to an Irish girl working in Monaco.”
Connor saw it on www.totallynice.com when she was on holiday, and bought it. Her tenant moved in the day after. “I put it on www.angloinfo.com and had about 40 British applicants. It’s where expats look for apartments.” She reckons it is now worth £79,000.
“We have just bought a 68sq m apartment in Nice for £137,000,” says Matt Roberts, who lives in Manchester. “We rent it through www.holiday-rentals.com and www.slowtrav.com, an American site, and think we will fill it for 30 weeks a year.” Rates? £310 a week in the winter, £480 in summer. “We bought it for ourselves; we thought we could make it pay for itself, and it does.” Surely the ideal formula for a successful French venture.
Alistair Sawday, www.specialplacestostay.com; Tony and Carole Hodgson, 00 33 296 344 608, www.leseilla.co.uk
