Greetings "Neighbour"!

Thank you for your interesting post. I am quite surprised to learn that prices in the Var actually fell by 50% in some areas between 1991-1998. I had holdings in Aix at that time but there, I think, prices must have held up better.

I sold an appartment in Aix in January of this year because I felt that, at best, prices were going to stagnate. I sold easily, as it turned out, but I was lucky and also the price was right. My contact there tells me that prices are now slipping.

We bought a house in the South Deux-Sevres in late 1993 and, in the following years, prices crept up. English-speaking people began moving into the area in numbers and this supported a market which otherwise was somewhat somnolent. As real estate prices in the UK outperformed almost any other European market, people began selling out there to have a taste of the "good life" down south.

Then came the boom years 2001-2006. The British arrived in droves and prices here, as everywhere, tacked on about 30% annually, if not more. By 2006 our holdings had tripled in value... The locals, of course, attributed the housig boom to 'les anglais'!

Today, the late comers to the party are finding themselves either with negative equity, or with a paper profit but with nobody to sell to. So many came and then, seemingly all together, decided that life there was getting expensive (euro appreciation against sterling) and their retirement no longer covered their needs.

We had already noticed a correlation between pound strength and UK-based immigration in the pre 2000 years, but never had the immigration been so great.

Now the British there are finding themselves (often) in a half-renovated house which is unsellable, in a country where the language poses more of a problem than most had anticipated, and where the cost of living has gone well beyond anything that anyone had anticipated. Many are choosing to tough it out, which is probably about the only option now available to them.

When we decided to move to Germany last year, it was already too late to sell. So we put long-term renters in the property and they, at least, are bringing in enough to pay off the mortage which, in early 2010, will have finally run its course.