Oui ou non?

October 31, 2005 9:53 AM

PropertyAbroadFilter: I'm from the UK, I live in the US, I want to buy in France. My idea is slightly crackpot...

I have a very close artist friend who lives and paints in Paris. He's currently sleeping in his studio and needs a place to stay. I have $20K, a reasonable disposable income, and a desire to speculate (1 bed apt = $200K). He's willing to do the leg work and is familiar with the buying process and upcoming areas, I'm willing to be the silent partner. Also, he gets his rent paid for by the government, so I could own the apt, have has rent help with my mortage, give him a place to stay and, hopefully, make a bit of cash from speculating.

Is this a crackpot idea? Has anyone bought property abroad? And who would I go to for a loan - a US lender, a UK lender, a French lender...?

posted by forallmankind to work & money (6 comments total)

I'm not a force in property speculation, nor on the UK, US or european financial market.

I can say though that on my recent overseas trip, the HSBC Bank seemed to be the only bank that had branches in every single country we went to (which included USA, UK and France). That alone might make them useful when organising your finance.
posted by mule at 1:27 PM on October 31, 2005

i don't think this will be hard, but you'll probably need to go to france. in my (limited) experience, the problem with being abroad is that you don't have residence and "normal" banks typically don't give accounts to non-residents. however, you are from the uk and france is in the eu, so i suspect you will find it trivial to open an account. so i'd suggest going across to paris, opening an account, and talking to them about a mortgage.

when i moved to chile from the uk i thought it important to have a single bank in both countries and chose citibank. that was a stupid move - their service in both the uk and chile is crap. in practice you're better off with a good local bank in both places - banks do inter-bank transfers all the time, and fees seem to be comparable whether you're within the same corporation or not. what really counts is local service.

so i'd say go to france, open an account with a bank local friends recommend, talk to the adviser there, explain what you want to do, and do it.

you'll need your own lawyer in france too - you need to be very clear on exactly what happens if you and your friend fall out.
posted by andrew cooke at 2:49 PM on October 31, 2005

ps the only problem i've had doing somthing vaguely similar is being invesigated (slightly) for money laundering. make sure you keep receipts for all transfers, and can explain how you earnt the money.
posted by andrew cooke at 2:51 PM on October 31, 2005

Remember that French bureaucracy is legendarily... well, bureaucratic. Buying a house there will take twice as long and require six times as much paperwork as you expect it should.
posted by blag at 4:14 PM on October 31, 2005

I was in Paris a few months back and while sitting at a cafe I randomly picked up a real estate listing thingy and I'm pretty sure 200K is going to get you a real big nothing inside the city itself. Prices looked expensive even compared to San Francisco/New York.
posted by aspo at 4:36 PM on October 31, 2005

You might want to read this: How I Fulfilled My Dream of Owning an Apartment in Paris.

"...as I was scouting for information on Paris real estate prices, I came across an article on the Internet titled, "Your Own Apartment in Paris Can Be Closer Than You Think." The story was about Catherine Aubale Epstein, a French-American real estate broker working for a firm in San Francisco, on Fillmore Street. (She now has started her own business: Paris Immo Realty.) The story said Epstein took clients step by step through purchasing, financing, and renovating apartments in Paris."

Best wishes!
posted by rdc at 6:43 PM on October 31, 2005