British house owners in France make £1 billion

This amazing statistic has been revealed by the foreign exchange team at Close Brothers:

Between 2008 and 2009, property prices in France declined by around 6.63%, but because of the rise in the value of the Euro, if those Brits owning property there had sold-up and converted the money back into Sterling, they would have actually made money. Close Treasury estimates that there are around 98,000 properties in France owned by British citizens, and between 2008 and 2009, the combined Sterling value of these would have increased by just over £1 billion, or £10,373 per property.


Of course the currency swing could have been the other way and we'd all have been £10,373 worse off but it's nice to know that despite the recession we've actually had a little bit of good fortune over the last 18 months.

Rest assured though that I won't be blowing my slice of the billion pounds on a caribbean cruise just yet.

www.cognacproperty.com

So, how many UK ex-pats live in the Cognac region?

I've always wondered and now I know thanks to this report from INSEE.

There are a total population of 91,000 in the area they define as the cognac region of whom 991 are UK ex-pats. I don't know if this sounds a little or a lot - at 1% it certainly doesn't feel like a huge amount (France has an overall 6% of population who are "foreigners").

What I do know is that it certainly doesn't seem like too many and we have never encountered any kind of racism or negative feeling.  Indeed it's the opposite as our French friends seem to embrace the friendly rivalry when it comes to sporting events (particularly rugby) and our children were welcomed into the local school with open arms back in 2003.

Nobody really seems to look upon us as "les Anglais" anymore.

We're "les Downies", a part of the community just like "les Martins", "les Guerins" and the rest of our friends and neighbours.

Anyway, the next time one of my clients asks if there are many Brits around here I'll be able to say it's 991. 

Right up until someone dies, has a baby or moves out.

www.cognacproperty.com

"Brits in France" brings in the visitors

I'm addicted to the google analytics for my blog pages.

They tell you how many visitors you've had, how they found you, how long they stayed and a zillion other interesting facts.

Today I discovered that nearly half my visitors who arrived from the google search page did so after typing "Brits in France".  Pretty amazing as this blog didn't come anywhere near the top of the list when I tried this.

Why too did readers stay for an average of seven minutes last Sunday when usually I can only be entertaining enough to keep them stimulated for two and a half?

One stat that I'm proud of is that 35% of all visitors are in the top two "loyalty" sections and come back every day.

Finally, four people this month stayed on the site for half an hour or more which means they must have read just about every post I've ever written.....if you happen to be one of this elite group then take a bow and if you click here you'll find out how to turn this original, informative & witty online content into a book for Grandma this Christmas.

Alternatively I hear the new Dan Brown thriller is pretty good.

www.cognacproperty.com