French property watch: July 2019

Beef and wine. What’s not to like about either of the two historic regions of France highlighted in this month’s Property Watch?

Limousin, famed for its herds of distinctive chestnut-red Limousin cattle and its oak forests – that are owned almost in their entirety by cognac manufacturer Rémy Martin.

Burgundy, one of France’s main wine-producing areas, and home to wines known and prized throughout the world – including Chablis, Côteaux de l’Auxerrois, Côte-de-Nuits, Côte-de-Beaune, Hautes-Côtes, Côtes Chalonnaise et Mâconnais, and Pouilly-sur-Loire.

Combined, these two decent-sized very rural regions are home to about 2.2million people dotted around villages and small market towns.

Even Dijon, with about 159,000 inhabitants, and Limoges, home to 135,000, are relatively cosy cities, certainly compared to French metropolises such as Paris, Marseille, Nice, Toulouse or Bordeaux.

Both are now part of larger regions – Limousin falls into the Nouvelle-Aquitaine super-region formed in 2015, while Burgundy is part of Bourgogne-Franche-Comté, which survived the redrawing of the map of France untouched.

Properties in the two areas are relatively cheap compared to other parts of France.

An average older property in Limoges, which is some distance from the more popular parts of Nouvelle-Aquitaine closer to the Atlantic coast, will set buyers back about €143,000, figures from the Notaires de France show – a year-on-year fall of nearly 3%.

A similar property in larger and apparently more appealing Dijon, meanwhile, will cost about €226,500 – a year-on-year rise close to 4%.