Sprogster

Another consideration I forgot to mention, is what happens next year to air fares, especially amongst the low cost carriers. There is an expectation that the likes of Ryanair and Easyjet will have to substantively increase their fares next year, because their fuel cost hedging runs out in the Autumn. Both airlines as a result are predicting a substantive reduction in profits in 2009 and their shares prices have fallen accordingly. Meanwhile in the USA, low cost carriers are falling like nine pins!

According to an article in the travel supplement of one the Sunday newspapers, the good news is that most people have already booked their travel arrangements for this years summer holidays and therefore any downturn in Brit visitors to the Eurozone should be limited. Although, Brits will be spending less and may cut down on short break visits. However, the bad news is that if the weakness of the £ persists together with a slow down in the economy generally, then an adverse impact will definitely be felt next year, as Brits stay at home or holiday in non Euro countries.

Britain joining the Euro is not even on the current political agenda, because at the moment anything connected with further European integration is a guaranteed vote loser in the UK. We Francophiles are in a small minority! Anyway, France would not allow Britain to join at under 1.40 as they would perceive it giving us unfair competitive advantage.

Logan, I agree, in that a specific concern about French property prices is that the market in certain regions has been heavily distorted by foreign buyers in recent years. What is more worrying is to the extent that British buyers comprise the significant majority of foreign buyers. (I read somewhere that in 2006 a quarter of all house transactions in France involved British buyers!)   If because of a combination of the credit squeeze, falling British house prices and a weakening £ against the Euro, the British buyer dissapears for the next few years, this could have a dramatic impact on the saleability of certain types of rural properties in France that seem to appeal mainly to the British. Add to the equation that the Irish economy is in trouble and we could be in for some interesting times! My advice to prospective buyers is hold fire, as in a years time house prices will be appreciably lower. 

It does not matter how much of a shortage of housing there is, if it becomes unaffordable to the average person and buyers find it difficult to raise finance, because lenders require larger and larger deposits. We may be at the beginning of a four to six year downward correction in prices, but it will take at least another year for this to become apparent as many sellers will only start reducing prices once their properties remain unsold for nine to twelve months.

Daisymay, The new controversial requirement for comprehensive private medical insurance brought in recently for inactifs moving to France, means that effectively it is impossible for an early retiree to move to France with an existing chronic medical condition, unless they are covered by an E121 from the UK. As no private medical insurer will provide cover for pre-existing chronic conditions. The irony is that if your husbands condition deteriorated to the point he was unable to work and as a result qualified for an E121, he would be covered in France. However, whilst he is still deemed fit to work and therefore unable to qualify for an E121, or obtain private medical insurance because of his Parkinsons, you would not meet the French requirements for permanent residency.

According to an International Monetary Fund report published last week, the United Kingdom, Ireland, France and Spain have the most over valued residential property markets and the countries most likely to see an appreciable downward correction in property values over the next two years.

Steven, The main issue is language rather than the different education systems, in that if it takes two years for your son to obtain the fluency of his age equivalent French peer group, can he then catch up on the syllabus in time, bearing in mind the French State is not obligated to educate your son after he is 16. For many teenagers, it does little good to your self esteem to have to re-take a school year, because you are struggling with language competency. How is your son doing at school now? If he is happy, settled and doing well, do you really want to disrupt that? If you can afford an English speaking international school, then the risks are that much less, but even then you should avoid your son changing schools once he has started his GCSE's.

Hi Steven, From responses to other similar posts, the general consensus is that 12 is the maximum age one should risk moving a child into a different language and education system. In two years time your son will have commenced his GSCE syllabus and at that point you are really committed until he finishes his exams. There will always be examples of teenagers who have moved successfully, it is just a question of do you want to risk your childs future education, when you just have to wait a few years until he has finished his schooling.

At the end of the programme it said in the titles that they were using exchange rates that applied in summer 2007. Other than Paris and Pas de Calais, Amanda Lamb was advising caution and encouraging buyers not to be afraid to make low ball offers in what was a buyers market. The prospective buyers being shown around properties in Corsica ended up buying off plan in Dubai! What they did not mention, is that there is a long standing element of hostility amongst locals to outside second home owners in Corsica, who have been known to burn them down!!      

Monika, The so called new incentive in allowing interest on a portion of your mortgage on your primary residence to be offset against tax, is capped at such a low limit to make it meaningless. The type of old rural house that seems to appeal to foreign buyers does not find favour with most French buyers, who prefer new properties that are cheaper to heat and maintain, in urban areas near to work. Most foreign buyers in France are second home owners and do not occupy their French properties through the winter and therefore do not have the same concerns as to the cost and practicality of heating an old house.  

In the UK there is better recognition amongst doctors as to the health risks in over prescribing antibiotics, as this is leading to increasing numbers of drug resistant bacterial infections. Apparently, the latest strain of TB to imerge is resistant to all known antibiotics. On the basis that colds and flu infections are viral and therefore antibiotic drugs are useless in their treatment, doctors should only prescribe antibiotics when a patient presents with identifiable bacterial infections. A doctor who too readily prescribes antibiotics is not doing their patients any favours, as a patient if they do fall ill with a serious bacterial infection is not going to thank their doctor, if they discover that their antibiotic medications are not working, because of historic over presription.

Part of the problem is perception, in that when you are in France and you listen to a British family not bother with the French language in a shop, you do not know if they are second home owners, holidaymakers or permanent residents. The vast majority of British owners of property in France are second home owners and if you are only spending a few weeks a year in France, it is next to impossible to become fluent in the French language, as you just do not get the practice. Especially, as you get older. In the threads on the changes to French health rules, I was very surprised at the comparatively low number of E106 and E121 holders resident in France, compared to the estimates as to the numbers of Brits that own houses there.

DerekJ, All may not be lost in your quest to buy a house in France, as if the £ does continue to slide towards Euro parity it will have a major detrimental impact on the values of those rural French properties that appeal mainly to the Brits. As a result, you might find in a year to eighteen months time that although you get less Euros for your £, the price of properties have fallen correspondingly and you can get a great deal if you are a cash buyer. Away from the Riviera, Provence and the Alps, purchasing a property in rural France is mainly a British love affair, as most other European nationals tend to look further south for a better climate. French buyers themselves are in short supply because of their slowing economy and high interest rates.      

From my professional experience, over the last few years the majority of buyers of London residential property in areas such as Mayfair, Kensington and Chelsea are foreign nationals, as evidenced by the fact that according to the Land Registry over 70% of these types of London properties are being purchased through foreign companies. The UK has a uniquely benign tax regime for foreign investors in UK real estate, in that there are no liabilities to UK Capital Gains Tax and the Inheritance Tax exposure can be simply and legally avoided by owning the UK property through a non UK resident Company. As a result wealthy individuals from Europe, Russia, the Middle East, the Far East all seem to want a second, third or fourth home in central London and seem to be willing to pay anything for a London home with the right address. The wealth being generated in Russia and the Middle East from the current price of oil, gas and minerals is astronomical and a London home seems to be on the must have list, as a safe haven investment and the place to visit. 

I am sorry to be the bearer of bad news but the £ appears to be in freefall with the US$ and I would not bet against parity to the Euro or worse!

The risk of a major downward correction in the UK property market has defnitely increased in the last few days. The UK banks to protect their balance sheets will continue to reign in their lending to the point that house prices will fall because of the lack of available mortgages.

The fact is Woody, that neither the ECB, Bank of England or the Fed Reserve are in control of what is going on and an interest rate cut by the ECB is not likely to have much impact. The main reason the £ is falling is that international investors are turning their backs on the UK market as after America, the UK is seen as the next country most vunerable to a collapsing housing market and resulting escalation of loan defaults. What could happen is if the US$ and £ continue to fall, the central banks might try and co-ordinate intervening in the currency markets to stabilise a situation that is rapidly getting out of hand. The ECB do not want an overvalued Euro, far from it, as it is highly damaging to the EU economy, as exports become increasingly uncompetitive. For example, with Airbus they are looking at moving manafacturing out of Europe, as who are going to buy their products if you can buy a Boeing in $ at half the price! Worrying times indeed.

According, to a Parisian couple I know who live in a smart residential area of central Paris, street crime has become a lot worse in the last two years. The subject came up as the wife was mugged outside their apartment recently and the husband said you now have to be a lot more careful walking around Paris at night and using the Metro.    

There is a thought provoking article on the BBC website, about French students being ill prepared for the world of work, and the poor world ranking of French University's themselves. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7293992.stm

With regards to crime, the better comparison with the Mediteranean areas of Spain, would be the Mediteranean areas of France and unfortunately in Southern France, house and car break ins are endemic. My house in a nice residential area of the Var, is fitted with an alarm, has shutters reinforced with metal bars, security locks and security lights, even though it is on a gated domain with 24 other houses close by. Notwithstanding, at least one of my immediate neighbours is broken into each year,  even if occupied and if not,  often the house being vandalised in the process. I am sure there are comparable sparsely populated rural areas of inland Spain where crime is very low and people leave the doors of their cars and houses unlocked. Like here in the C.I.! It is a bit like making broad comparisons between the whole of the UK and France, when most general comparisons are meaningless, unless you compare regions of similar demographics.  

One other very important factor you need to take into consideration is the deteriorating economy, especially in France and the UK. Over the past few years most consumers having been going through a credit binge driven by loose government fiscal policy and now the chicken is coming home to roost as they say. Add to the equation of tightening credit, the weakening of the £, escalating oil prices and rising unemployment and you have the makings of a difficult period for business in general. Most analysts expect low cost air fares to increase dramatacilly in 2009 as by this Autumn their fuel hedge arrangements will have expired. For example, Easyjet have hedged their fuel costs until September at $75 a barrel, compared to current market of $105. As they say in financial services "Past performance is no guarantee of future gains" Bon chance.  

According to my sister and her husband who are both medical Doctors, broken bones are indeed life threatening, treated or otherwise. Apparently, the major risk arising from a broken bone are blood clots that break away and lead to a lung embolism during the healing process. Sadly, my wife's father died under exactly these circumstances some years ago. Maybe this is information one would prefer not to know!  

I think one of the main reasons people choose Spain is for the milder climate in winter and I suppose if winter warmth is a prime motivator, France is not exactly the best choice!  

According to my Doctor, the latest medical advice is that the accuracy of the PSA tests can be improved by having one test in your forties before any problems are likely to arise. These results are then kept on your medical records to act as a more accurate base line to compare with, when you start having regular PSA tests in your fifties. I was having a routine blood test last year for such things as colesterol and my Doctor suggested this, as all that was required was a tick in an additional box on the Lab request form.