From Pezenas in the South of France

This is number 78,

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1. Home Rentals - Private Owner or a Travel Company
2. Buying in France - Pros and Cons
3. ChateauMaison and Mrs Roberts
4. A Place in the Sun - See us on TV - and in the Book
5. Nizas - "La Griffe"

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1. Home Rentals - From a Private Owner or a Travel Company

The number of visitors to France renting a private home or a villa has increased enormously in the last 5 years. From a "cottage" (excuse the pun) industry, it is now very big business.

For over 30 years, most rentals were arranged by travel agents through catalogue companies. Some, Like Meon Travel, French Life, and Thompson, have stood the test of time and offer thousands of good holiday properties, with guarantees and security.

These reputable companies have to be bonded by ABTA and other agencies which guarantee the quality of service and ensure you money is safe. These charges plus the costs of advertising and the support they give with local representitives are expensive. On a typical villa rental of 1500 euro a week, the owner will expect to recieve about 1000 euro, guaranteed by the company. The owner also has to pay taxes and charges on their home and pay someone to clean, change linen and look after the property.

We estimate that an owner should have about 50% of the advertised rental price left, before tax, from renting their home.

In the hope of getting a bigger share of the rental, many owners are now advertising their homes direct through Catalogues like "Chez Nous", newspapers such as the Sunday Times and by using the Internet with marketing websites like our own
http://rentalsfrance.com
RentalsFrance.com

and hundreds (thousands) of others offering advertising and marketing services.

Some owners have made their own Internet site, which is why, if you do a search on Google for "france villa rentals", or hundreds of search terms like this, our sites are (today) at numbers 1 and 2 and there are over 120 thousand sites behind us.

In fact, in the majority of cases, the private owner will not save any money by advertising privately and is risking both having their property empty for a lot of the time and is likely to be breaking laws or leaving themselves open to legal actions from renters if something goes wrong.

In the last two years, the number of rental properties offered in France has more than doubled, the numbers of visitors this year have fallen and although property prices have risen sharply, the price of a rental has not changed much in 5 years.

Renters are demanding (and getting) better services, more facilities and lower prices. Owners are facing higher marketing costs, more controls and legal standards (many long overdue such as Pool regulations) and strong competition. If you have a property suitable for the major catalogues, we srtongly recommend that you consider this option for rentals. We are happy to advise and either way we can offer your property through our sites.

We work very closely with the major travel companies and believe that for value and security they offer an incomparable service.

At present we are looking for private villas in Languedoc Roussillon for one of our partners "Meon Travel" - so if you have a good quality villa with pool in the south, do http://rentalsfrance.com/contact
Contact Us

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2. Buying in France - Pros and Cons

Thinking about buying a home in France for Investment? Here are 10 bullet points for the Pros and 10 for the cons.

PRO

1. A second home can usually be funded by low interest loans and this is an excellent way of securing capital if you have a regular income and building an investment or retirement portfolio.

2. You can have the advantage of using the property for vacations which will be much cheaper than renting other properties.

3. Having a "base" in another region or country will broaden your knowledge and give you and you family extended "roots" which will benefit you in many ways, increase your understanding and tolerance and can bring many new friends and experiences.

4. Property has consistently been a safe investment over a long period of time. 5. With a rental income and capital appreciation, property has proven a steady and reliable way of securing capital with a return usually better than any other investment through banks or mutual societies.

6. Taxation rates and terms are changing rapidly in every country, having the option for two tax bases can be an advantage (but see cons).

7. Thinking and planning for a property in a region with a better climate can help get through the bad-weather days.

8. If you travel, having tax paid funds banked in another currency from rental income can save you substantial bank and currency charges.

9. Some areas have special tax concessions for investment property which can reduce the purchase price by over 20%.

10. Buy land, they stopped making it (Mark Twain).

CON

1. Prices can go down in the short term and interest rates rise, you should only invest in property long term.

2. Income from rentals in most other countries MUST be taxed in that county, there are usually double taxation agreements, but do make sure of this.

3. Even with a double taxation agreement, the income from all sources is usually considered for calculating your tax threshold. This can have the affect of your tax liability in both countries being pushed over the tax level you would have had. GET PROFESSIONAL ADVICE ON THIS.

4. New laws make it illegal for anyone to have any income from anywhere without it being fully declared in both your country of residence and the country where you own assets. Not only that, but anyone who is "suspicious" that you have not fully declared your income and assets, MUST report you and they MUST NOT tell you. This now includes your professional and "confidential" financial advisors, banks and even antique dealers, jewelers and car sales people. The key-word here is "suspicious", if someone just thinks you may be evading some taxes - they HAVE to report you without telling you or they are liable to huge criminal penalties themselves. This is the case in the UK and many other places from October this year.

5. Your capital is "locked in" until you sell.

6. If you like visiting different places each year, then a fixed home can be a disadvantage. However, there are many home exchange websites where you can "swap" weeks.
7. You will need to find and pay a local person to keep an eye on the property, look after your guests and deal with local services, plumbers etc. If you rent through a reputable agency this will take some of these responsibilities, but their commission must be taken into account.

8. If you rent yourself you must consider the marketing costs, local tourism taxes if you let short term, local charges (there can be many, you MUST get good local advice and not just from the people selling to you). As a rule of thumb, the costs of renting to short term or vacation tenants is about 50% of the revenue.

9. If you rent long term, the cost from an agency are lower, from 15%, but in many places a long term tenant has powerful legal rights and cannot be removed, or will take a long time and much expenditure to get to leave your property.

10. They stopped making land, but they put a lot of it in the wrong places (Tony Tidswell). Only one thing really matters when investing in property - LOCATION.

We are launching a new property site to share information and for buyers and sellers to exchange details - this will be fully configured by October 1, you can see the site and write to the members forum at...

http://frenchpropertydigest.com/ FrenchPropertyDigest.com

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3. ChateauMaison and Mrs Roberts

We have had a number of complaints about the owner of a property we offered on our site and would like to hear from anybody who rented a property from a Mrs Miriam Roberts. If you have rented or know anyone who has rented a property from her, please contact us at... http://rentalsfrance.com/contact
Contact Us

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4. A Place in the Sun - See us on TV - and in the Book

Last year we had a film crew in our garden in Nizas for a day. It was hard work keeping the level of wine in our glasses at the same level for hours due to their needs for continuity.

Not only are we scheduled to be on Britsh TV soon, watch out for Languedoc, but they have chosen us to be one of the chapters in the book of the series.

"A Place in the Sun" - (Dream Homes Without Your Reach),
By Fanny Blake, ISDN - 0-7522-1588-4
http://nizas.com/
Nizas.com

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5. Nizas - "La Griffe"

The center of our village is the fountain (La Griffe) with a statue of the goddess Artemis chosen instead of the more traditional French "Marianne" as the citizens of the time were more Royalist than Republican (and still are).

Facing the fountain are the church,the cafe the old Mairie and the chateau. The new Mairie is just across from one side and there are twelve houses to complete the circle around "Place de la Griffe".

Of the dozen houses, two are "abandoned" and have not been lived in for over 60 years, five are second homes and five are lived in permanently.

There is no through road, so the area is a meeting place for the village, playground for children and is used throughout the year for all fetes, festivals, exhibitions, music, carnivals, travelling fairs as well as loto (bingo) and theater in the summer when a stage is erected at one end.

Artemis .."a friend to mortals who, in silver sandles, dances through the countryside giving protection to wild beasts and who rides a silver chariot across the sky shooting arrows of silver Moonlight to the earth".. faces the uninteresting and rather shabby cafe, but even this daughter of Zeus would have a hard time getting a cafe creme from the owner Alain who is famous for his rudeness and erratic opening hours.

In spite of the cafe which has a hideous aluminium carbuncle in front of its classic 18th century building, and the Chateau with a 17th century garage for the sheep along its main wall, all the buildings around the fountain are excellent examples of local architecture. Even the two abandoned buildings are magificent, one being the master house of a now extinct family, which due to the French laws of inheritance may stay empty for many years yet, and the other is the old presbetary of the priestless church.

Every year I prmomise myself I will continue the "Nizas Project, to record the change in this village from a farming community to a dormitory town - I will try over the next few weeks to at least record some observations of some of the main characters of Nizas, not the people who are ever transient, but the homes and buildings, some of which have been here for over 2,000 years.

Here are a few photos of "La Griffe" and her neighbours.

http://nizas.com/griffe/
Nizas.com/griffe

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Please excuse again the mistakes and do write to us about anything
mailto:tony@pezenas.com
tony@pezenas.com
Until next week - Tony