Conventional wisdom holds that once you buy a house in France, you can sell it
only to other Brits. The French want something different. Above all, they
want something cheaper. Conventional wisdom is wrong. All over the country,
enterprising Britons are building, selling and finding properties for an
increasingly large and hitherto relatively untapped French market.
Take Charles McLeod, a serial entrepreneur.
A couple of years ago, he decided he would like a riverside property in France
where he could do a spot of fishing. To his dismay, he found they didn’t
seem to exist. At this point, most people would have given up on the idea or
looked elsewhere. Not McLeod, who has made a career of setting up companies
to satisfy needs of his own that nobody else seemed to be catering for. He
created Prestige Riverside Developments, with the aim of building properties
along the most idyllic rivers in France.
McLeod’s first project is the conversion of a 13th-century mill in
Villeneuve-sur-Lot, in Lot-et-Garonne, that ceased to be functional in 1977.
He is putting two large flats in the mill itself, and 10 townhouses along
the river. Work has just started, and four of the houses have already been
sold — all to French buyers.
“I was expecting them to go to Brits,” says McLeod, whose previous ventures
have included Currencies4less, a foreign-exchange company, and Prestige
CCTV, a firm that helps people use the web to monitor their homes from afar.
McLeod believes his success is due in part to the reputation of Philippe
Gaillard, the architect involved in the project. “He is a larger-than-life
local figure, and people trust his work. Once they heard he was involved,
they wanted in,” he says. “I also think our prices are competitive, and
possibly a little less than the market rate now. When we priced it, 18
months ago, they were spot-on, but the market has moved on.”
The two-bedroom townhouses are priced at £205,300 and the three-bedroom ones
cost £274,300. All will have gardens leading to the water’s edge. The
three-bedroom penthouse flat in the mill costs £293,000, with the second
flat priced at £274,300. The whole development will be within a gated
complex.
McLeod also attributes some of the interest from local buyers to the fact that
the French do not share the traditional British prejudice against new
properties. “They would rather have something new and sell the old wreck in
the middle of nowhere,” he says. “The French are keener on new-builds than
Brits are.”
When Karl O’Hanlan, 35, moved from Dublin to Béziers, in the Languedoc, two
years ago to become a partner in Garrigae Investissements, a
property-development company, he, too, was convinced that most of his
clients would be British. He did not, therefore, expect his inability to
speak French to be much of a handicap.
“I have a French partner who looks after all the construction and planning
permissions,” he says, “but on the sales side, I thought I would be dealing
exclusively with Brits.”
He has now taken a crash course in the language and hired a team of sales
people dedicated to the French-speaking market. “About 40% of our inquiries
are from French people,” O’Hanlan says. “I think they are getting more
discerning and looking for better-quality developments. In addition, the tax
breaks for French people on buying new properties have helped developers
like us.”
Particularly popular with French buyers has been a development called Les
Jardins de Saint Benoît, near Carcassonne in Aude. “Funnily enough, we are
finding that the profile of our French-speaking clients very much matches
that of our Anglo-Saxon clients,” O’Hanlan says. “There are two kinds: one
is from the north of France, Belgium or Luxembourg, looking for a family
home in the sun. The other is already installed in the south, and looking
for a good investment.”
The properties for sale consist of one- or two-bedroom village houses and
three-, four- or five-bedroom villas. Prices start at £141,500 and go up to
£438,300. Garrigae offers a rental service whereby investors are guaranteed
an income from their property of up to 5.59% of the purchase price.
It is not just British developers who are finding favour with the locals. So,
too, are some of the British estate agents and property-finders in France
who had been expecting interest to come primarily from their compatriots.
Patrick Cameron, 64, for example, moved to the High Languedoc from London
three years ago and set up Prime Languedoc, a property-finding service aimed
largely at Britons or other English-speakers, from Ireland or America. He
has found that many of those who approach him are French expats planning to
return home after a career abroad.
“Of course, they don’t have the language barrier to overcome, nor are they
usually concerned about the purchase procedure, but their main problem is
time,” Cameron says.
“I had an inquiry the other day from a French couple in Washington. They are
looking to retire to the region in two years, and don’t have the time to
come over to look at houses every few months, so they have left it to me.
“In a way, the French are easier to house-hunt for, because they don’t have
the preconceptions the English do about wanting old stone and rural
locations.This makes my life a lot easier, as there are more new-builds
around than old farmhouses.”
Simon Wright, 51, and his girlfriend, Fiona Bennett, 43, have also been
surprised by the nationality of their clientele. Three years ago, the
couple, who previously lived in Sussex, bought a former wine domaine near
Pau, in Aquitaine.
A year ago, they turned the outhouses into offices for the French headquarters
of Prime Oak, a British company that makes high-quality oak-framed
conservatories, orangeries, garages, swimming- pool buildings and even
houses. The buildings, which come in kit form, are assembled on site. Prices
start at £7,000 and go up to £70,000 or more.
“We have found strong demand from the locals, who see Prime Oak products as
similar to traditional French oak buildings, and want to move away from the
breeze-block style of cheap construction,” Wright says.
To help with the French sales drive, they have taken on a French partner,
Bruno Vaillard, who was impressed by the quality of the product and felt
confident that it would work for locals as well as expats. “Oak is
indigenous to southwest France, so it looks good here,” Wright says. “We are
finding that locals are beginning to consider our products as viable
alternatives to modern houses, especially as the prices are nowhere near as
high as most people imagine.”
It used to be that the British bought old wrecks and did them up. Now, it
seems, they are building new houses, and doing it so well that even the
French want to buy them. So much for conventional wisdom.
- Prestige Riverside Developments; 0845 054 6464, www.prestigeriverside.com
(London agents: Winkworth International; 0845 251 9000, www.winkworth.co.uk).
Garrigae Investissements; 00 33 4 67 11 87 19, www.garrigae.com.
Prime Languedoc; 00 33 4 67 44 22 60, www.primelanguedoc.com.
Prime Oak; 00 335 62 09 40 49, www.primeoak.co.uk
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