In our area of the Poitou-Charentes (south Deux-Sevres) there are hundreds of properties on the market with no buyer in sight. There are certainly amongst these some good properties to be found at well under peak 2006 valuations. If you want to buy, you can take your time, in this area at least I can't see anything picking up anytime soon.

Beware of the agents who systematically paint a rosy view of the situation in order to entice you to buy. Never forget where the vested interest of the person giving you his advice lies!

As regards France it shouldn't be forgotten - it often it is here - that Real Estate had a fantastic run up from 2000-2005. Such periods, when they come, are usually very spaced out over time. I believe that the inflation provoked by the country's adhesion to the Euro played a major part in this rise, which also happened to coincide with the bursting of the DotCom bubble. To my knowledge only Germany remained unaffected, but that country had its own specific set of issues.

France has traditionally a segmented market with places like Paris and the Riviera behaving one way, remoter areas quite another. You will have to look at the specific conditions in the market you are looking at. In desirable urban high-density areas prices seem to hold up better in soft market conditions as we are seeing now.

I hope that this is useful to some of you.