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Sun, sea, white beaches, a relaxing atmosphere, tasty food and a lovely glass of wine whilst watching the beautiful French sunset. Or how about visiting the mountains and their white slopes? What else could you possibly desire?

After a few weeks, you would have to desert you own holiday home, leaving it vacant and idle. If only there were a solution for this so you could enjoy your holidays and, when returning home, turning it into a profitable investment.

A leaseback offers this possibility and a number of other advantages. Originating from 1976, the French leaseback scheme is an attractive option for (potential) long-term, property investors. Set up by the French government forty years ago, it was an initiative to promote tourism in France.

One of the advantages of the scheme is that you are exempt of the 19.6% VAT charge normally applying to new properties. You would be able to use your property approximately four weeks a year. However, there are also plenty of developments where you could stay for a longer period for time. Another benefit is the guaranteed income of 3% to 5.5%. A management company looks after your property in your absence, making it a stress- and hassle-free investment for you.

For an example of such an investment - follow this link:

Click here >> Leaseback Investment

Farida Vidal EUPP

Popularity: 10% [?]

Figures from Department of Work & Pensions…..
Show that over 1 million Brits now have their pensions paid abroad (cf. 770,000 in 1997).

Around 74,000 in Spain (up from 26,700 10 years ago)

32,000 in Italy.

31,000 in France

New research from Mutual Assurance indicated that 33% of people approaching retirement age hope to live in the Sun!

Count me in too!

Popularity: 9% [?]

Here is the research we did for another of our sites - PropertyMagnate.com..

The sample is taken on 283,298 searches by UK users for the last month (June / July 2006)

The usual favourites are Spain, Dubai, Cyprus and France. Spain still dominates with over double the interest of the next country Dubai. Cyprus continues to do well with all the media attention. France - an old favourite - is a very popular destination with more thinking of France for permanent residence.

Popularity: 6% [?]

Lots of new property for you to enjoy … 70 more properties today and over 300 properties added in the last fortnight.

What would you expect to pay to buy on the South Coast of France? How about less than £80,000! Yes you read that correctly!

Our first is in the Provence no less!

And second is further West in Fitou (yes the Wine Growing area), and very near the sunshine coast in the Languedoc-Roussillon …….

Ref:V542

Charming house situated in the beautiful wine village of Fitou This pretty little house, with exposed stone walls, has a habitable space of 60sqm, but you have the possibility to extend by adding a second floor! At the moment the house comprises a living room/kitchen area, a large bedroom and a bathroom All of this on a land (where you can put a pool) of 614sqm, with a covered terrace With a lots of ideas, you converted it into a wonderful house, where you could live all year round!! Must be seen!!!! How much? Just 110,000 euros!

Other highlights……..

Ref: BF530 at 88,000 euros - Haute Vienne, Limousin - Two bedroom restored house in Parc Naturel.

Refs: 20030 / 20031 / 20032 from 143,000 euros - New development at Monflanquin, Lot-et-Garonne - One to Three bedroom restored house in Parc Naturel.

Further details of these properties and other new properties here:

http://www.1st-for-french-property.co.uk/whatsnewEP.htm

Enjoy and book some viewings today!

Popularity: 12% [?]

We have another 150 new French property for you to choose from this week.

Some highlights for you …..

Ref: 633 - An absolute bargain at 11,500 euros (that is about £8000). This will not be on the market for long - ring Didier now on +33 3 84 31 39 25. This is a habitable stone house with 1 bed and garden in the Champagne-Ardennes.

Ref: 633 - Another corker with Didier in the Champagne-Ardennes - massive terraced farmhouse in good structural condition and its is only 29,500 euros.

Ref: 231185 - Barns for renovation are still sought after and this is real charmer set in the rolling countryside of the Creuse (Limousin). This barn has great views with about 1.5 acres of land. And it is a snip at 55,000 euros.

Ref: 859 - Further south nr Albi in the Midi-Pyrenees - imagine the best French countryside and fabulous weather. Well now you can enjoy it yourself with this lovely villa with swimming pool. Beautiful!! Yes, this can can be your idyll for 300K euros.

More details here:

http://www.1st-for-french-property.co.uk/whatsnewEP.htm

Enjoy….

Popularity: 6% [?]

We are constantly analysing consumer trends on 1st-for-French-Property.co.uk. From our perspective we have seen consistent 70,000 to 85,000 unique visitors per month since November 2005 with a peak of over 100,000 visitors in January. January is always our busiest month - new year resolutions and promises of lifestyle changes! Of course, mid June to July has been very slow with the pre-occupation of the World Cup. But enquiries have picked since England’s demise in the competition!

However, we always like to guess how we are doing in comparison to the competition! Google have released a useful tool - Google Trends -  which allows you to see the popularity of keywords over a period of time. Data is only available for certain keywords (those with a reasonable traffic). Such a keyword is “french property“. Here are results for “french property” - the url is:

http://www.google.com/trends?q=french+property&ctab=0&geo=all&date=all

The graph below shows the trends since 2004 to the present time…

Surprisingly the trends show a downward trend although it seems to be reaching a plateau. This indicates that “French Property” is not so popular as 2004! Is this indicative of the emergence of the new European Property markets of Turkey, Bulgaria, Cyprus and similar? These destinations are now more accessible with cheap budget flights and low property prices!

Another graph illustrates where the enquiries are coming from….

This graph suggests that Ireland is the source of most enquiries. This result is very surprising - the UK is the major source of our enquiries but we do get many enquiries from Ireland normally for investment properties. Perhaps this is indicative of the property market in Ireland where property prices have escalated.

As Google says these trends are indicative only - “it is based upon just a portion of our searches, and several approximations are used when computing your results. Please keep this in mind when using it.“

Popularity: 10% [?]