Glamour versus austerity
Four international
estate agencies opened offices, formed affiliations or acquired local
estate agencies on the French Riviera between March and June this
year – Savills, Knight Frank, Chesterton Humberts and Christies
International Real Estate. The agents say the French Riviera's luxury
housing market is benefiting from a domino effect with a growing
number of increasingly wealthy international HNWIs buying a home in
London and then wanting a place on the Cote d'Azur.
But with the French
economy stalled, President Hollande raising taxes and the eurozone in
crisis, how well timed is this move to the Med? Some estate agents
and buyers agents who have been operating on the Riviera for a while
say they would be busier sitting on the beach this summer, because so
few buyers are around. But other agents say business is good, so it
is not clear which way the market is headed in the short term.
The longer term must
surely be bright. Times may be rocky now, but they were worse during
World War Two, and the Riviera recovered from that, so why not this
time? The Cote d'Azur is and will remain one of the most glamorous
places in the world. When the eurozone crisis is finally resolved,
estate agents, letting agents and buyers agents will be far too busy
to even contemplate spending summer on the beach.
The leaves
unanswered the big question of “how long must we wait for the good
times?”. Nobody knows. It could be months, but more likely years,
and it brings to mind Warren Buffett's advice to stock buyers which
must hold true for the housing market - “Only buy something that
you'd be perfectly happy to hold if the market shut down for 10
years.” Hopefully, it won't be that bad.
