Mortgage interest rates in France remain at their lowest for years at around 3%. French property experts consider that this helped to sustain the market for older properties (as opposed to new construction) in 2013.

Properties in Paris are traditionally marketed by price per square meter. Now FNAIM, the trade association for realtors in Paris and the Ile-de-France region, has developed an interactive real estate map. This allows you to identify the arrondissements (districts) that have properties in the price range and of the type you’re looking for.

The City of Paris owns a substantial slice of the City of Light. Taking its lead from the French government, in 2013 City Hall listed and disclosed the extent of its real estate. It holds five million square meters of property – equivalent to around 17.4% of Paris’s total built real estate.

Good news for real estate buyers in Paris: the City of Paris has decided not to increase its share of stamp duty on property sales as of March 1st 2014. That portion of stamp duty will remain at 3.8% of the purchase price instead of rising to 4.5%.

France may have led the way in imposing capital gains tax (CGT) on sales of second homes but the UK is now following suit.

Mortgage rates in France have been at historic lows in recent months. However, the outlook for the next move in interest rates has changed markedly over this period. During the summer of 2013, commentators expected French mortgage rates to rise before the end of the year. In the early fall, this was pushed out to […]

An interview with our collaborator Nicole von Klencke, owner-manager of Unusual Spaces in Berlin. She personally advises clients who seek high-end real estate tailored to their specific needs. 1.    What are your customers typically looking to buy? Our customers want something special, so we offer only architecturally-interesting or exclusive properties with a fascinating history. […]

Renting your apartment to a film company as a location or for a photo shoot can be rewarding. How do you go about it and what are the issues?

The way Paris looks today owes much to Baron Georges-Eugène Haussmann, Prefect of the Seine in the mid-19th century. The long, straight boulevards, magnificent open spaces and elegant façades that are everyone’s image of modern Paris arose from the ashes of tortuous medieval alleyways and overcrowded slums. Few houses had running water and disease was […]

Today, 21 million citizens of non-European Union (EU) countries live in a member state of the EU. Growing cross-border mobility and property ownership mean that beating a path through the jungle of inheritance law is becoming ever more necessary.