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Home Countries France

Visiting Paris/Renting Out An Apartment In Paris/Marche Aux Puces

Kathleen Peddicord by Kathleen Peddicord
Nov 09, 2008
in France, Paris, Renting
0
One of the apartment residences in the 12th district of Paris.
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“The honesty and realism of your information shines through. I am looking forward to continuing reading your offerings for a long time.”
— Carol C., United States

The Most Romantic Place On Earth

“I walked over from my office, along the river and then across the Pont des Arts,” explained my friend as I sat down beside him for our meeting at the little café on the corner of rue du Bac and the river.

“The lights of the Louvre and the other buildings along the Seine, glowing along both sides of the river and reflecting and shimmering on the dark surface of the water,” he continued. “The view…all around…it’s perfect.

“When you get to that point in your life when you appreciate beauty and romance, you realize that there’s just nothing like Paris. Nowhere in the world compares.”

My friend didn’t have to sell me on his position. I’ve been savoring our Paris experiences these past 10 days, storing up impressions and memories for when we’re elsewhere.

We’ve spent most of the week preparing our apartment in this city for rental. Paris must be one of the most expensive places in the world to carry a piece of real estate. Syndic (building) fees, insurance, taxes (as a property owner in France, you’re liable for two)…plus we’ve been paying electric, gas, phone, and Internet charges, keeping the place ever-ready for any chance we might have to pop over for a visit.

The truth is, though, we finally had to admit, we won’t be able to get to this part of the world more than once a year for the next few. We’re fully occupied elsewhere. Silly to leave it sitting empty 11 ½ months a year.

No problem in Paris. In this town, an apartment in a central location will always rent.

In fact, this past week’s experiences have reminded me that a Paris apartment can be one of the best long-term real estate investments you ever make. Because it’s versatile. You can use it yourself and, if you enjoy Paris as we do, yield an incalculable return. And then, whenever you decide you’re ready, you can arrange to find someone who’ll pay you for the chance to enjoy it for a few weeks or a few months himself.

Paris sees more tourists than any other place on earth, and it’s hard to imagine this changing anytime soon. Good times and bad…bull markets and bear…people come to Paris.

“I had a client in October who came to town for a month while her kitchen in Los Angeles was being remodeled,” explained a friend over lunch today. “She rented an apartment in Paris for four weeks, an apartment in Rome for two, and another in London for two more.”

My friend works for a custom tour agency. “Here in Paris,” she continued, “I organized personalized shopping days for her. I don’t think the current global market downturn has affected her. People with her kind of money ride this stuff out…and, no matter market cycles, come to Paris.”

They come to Paris…and they need a place to stay.

So, when you buy a Paris pied-a-terre of your own, buy first what you like. This is my first rule of real estate investing: Buy what you like.

Then, here in Paris, buy what will rent easily, global market conditions notwithstanding.

Again, an apartment in the 1st, 5th, 6th, 7th, or 8th arrondissement of this city will always find a renter.

What kind of return can you hope for? You’re not going to get rich off a Paris apartment rental, but, with the right rental manager, you should be able to yield 4% to 6% net (assuming no mortgage) on a short-term, less if you rent long-term (three months to a year at a time).

Remember: Foreigners can finance in France. You could buy an apartment in Paris with as little as 20% down. If you’re buying to rent, you won’t cash flow with an 80% mortgage. However, you could borrow up to say, 60% of the purchase price and make enough through rental fees to cover the mortgage, the management fee, and other expenses from day one.

And my friend Henley Johnson at Flat Hunter can help you find the Paris flat with your name on it.

Flat Hunter is the oldest property search service in this city. And it specializes in helping English-speaking buyers (like you) shop.

The challenge when looking to buy real estate in a foreign country is to break through the international market and access the local one. In Paris, this is critical, because the best apartments never make it to the international market–that is, the market of properties advertised in the windows of “international agencies.” The apartments you find this way are the leftovers.

The best apartments in this town never appear in any agency window. They change hands on the word of a friend of a friend or the recommendation of an old classmate of a neighbor. That’s how we were lucky enough to find our place four years ago.

Henley’s group operates at this “private” level and plugs you in locally.

Furthermore, as in most places around the world, there’s no Multiple Listing Service in Paris. Typically, you’ve got to meet and see properties with as many agents as possible operating in the area where you’re interested in buying.

Not so with Flat Hunter, which boasts an extensive and market-wide network of contacts and resources. The agents, notaries, developers, private owners, and friends they stay in touch with call them first when a good apartment comes up for sale. I know of no other agency in this city operating this way. Henley can tell you more; reach her here: ParisFlats@LiveandInvestOverseas.com.

Kathleen Peddicord

P.S. So far, this Paris rental experience has been our most successful to date. We’ve found competent, experienced, professional help all the way down the line, from the tenant-finding agency to the property manager, from the movers to the “One Room More” offsite storage people. (If you’d like to be put in touch with any of them, send me a note: Publisher@LiveandInvestOverseas.com.)

To maximize our return, we’re converting what has been our home-office to a third bedroom. For me, this has been the best part of the deal, for it necessitated a trip out to the Marche aux Puces at Clignancourt yesterday to shop for a bed. We took Metro line 4 all the way to the end, climbed out of the Metro station, then braved our way through the hordes of tourists, shoppers, and sidewalk hawkers that congregate here always. Onward, we continued, for 15 minutes, through the stalls of clothes, shoes, electronics, and DVD’s to the furniture.

Clignancourt is the largest flea market in the world, covering 7 hectares and seeing, on average, 180,000 shoppers a weekend. I think 170,000 of them were there while we were looking for our bed yesterday afternoon. Moving among these enthusiastic market-goers, you’d never know the world was ending…

We found a 200-year-old Louis XVI two-person bed in perfect condition for 550 euro. A great deal, especially given the current strength of the dollar here in euro-land.

Tags: Renting Out An Apartment In Paris
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Kathleen Peddicord

Kathleen Peddicord

Kathleen Peddicord has covered the live, retire, and do business overseas beat for more than 30 years and is considered the world's foremost authority on these subjects. She has traveled to more than 75 countries, invested in real estate in 21, established businesses in 7, renovated historic properties in 6, and educated her children in 4.

Kathleen has moved children, staff, enterprises, household goods, and pets across three continents, from the East Coast of the United States to Waterford, Ireland... then to Paris, France... next to Panama City, where she has based her Live and Invest Overseas business. Most recently, Kathleen and her husband Lief Simon are dividing their time between Panama and Paris.

Kathleen was a partner with Agora Publishing’s International Living group for 23 years. In that capacity, she opened her first office overseas, in Waterford, Ireland, where she managed a staff of up to 30 employees for more than 10 years. Kathleen also opened, staffed, and operated International Living publishing and real estate marketing offices in Panama City, Panama; Granada, Nicaragua; Roatan, Honduras; San Miguel de Allende, Mexico; Quito, Ecuador; and Paris, France.

Kathleen moved on from her role with Agora in 2007 and launched her Live and Invest Overseas group in 2008. In the years since, she has built Live and Invest Overseas into a successful, recognized, and respected multi-million-dollar business that employs a staff of 35 in Panama City and dozens of writers and other resources around the world.

Kathleen has been quoted by The New York Times, Money magazine, MSNBC, Yahoo Finance, the AARP, and beyond. She has appeared often on radio and television (including Bloomberg and CNBC) and speaks regularly on topics to do with living, retiring, investing, and doing business around the world.

In addition to her own daily e-letter, the Overseas Opportunity Letter, with a circulation of more than 300,000 readers, Kathleen writes regularly for U.S. News & World Report and Forbes.

Her newest book, "How to Retire Overseas: Everything You Need to Know to Live Well (for Less) Abroad," published by Penguin Random House, is the culmination of decades of personal experience living and investing around the world.

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