It seems the Mexican stand-off may finally be over in France with some fairly dramatic reductions in asking prices before everyone decamps to the coast for the summer.

I've been keeping my nose pressed against the windows in the Grenoble area and here are a couple of examples. This house started out at 470kE last autumn, now down to 390Ke, given that on average accepted offers are 12% off the asking price you would expect this to go for around 360K - that's still above 2005 prices though

http://www.seloger.com/detail.htm?ci=38014...OBW_ANN_QRYpg=1

This went on at 475KE a couple of months ago and is now down to 410KE
http://www.seloger.com/detail.htm?ci=38014...N_QRYpg=7#photo

Set these prices in the context of salaries. An experienced teacher will earn 25KE per year. That said Grenoble is one of the more bouyant job markets at the moment.

It is a pity that there is no French property snake and precious little other information. Even French estate agents were moaning recently about the lack of detail about house price movements.

I think further falls to come - wouldn't buy in France until 2009/2010.

Sales of new builds were down nearly 30% in the first quarter. Property "experts" who have been talking of a "soft landing" have been shocked by the brutal change in the French market. The biggest drops were in the Limousin (- 64,8%), Lorraine (- 68,4%) and Auvergne (- 67,9%)

http://www.diagnostic-expertise.com/estima...bilier-1255.php

The slow down has been blamed on the banks who are lending less money and for shorter periods. The average time to sell a house has climbed from 8 to 11 months. House builders on the other hand have blamed the lack of planning permission. Estate agents do not believe there will be any significant drop in price in France.

Related thread on main HPC website with views and articles on French Property market.

http://www.housepricecrash.co.uk/forum/ind...showtopic=78377

I've been looking for good sources of French Data. Some of you may know Pap (person to person) which is a newspaper and website exclusively devoted to selling property. They have a calculator that will give you the price per m2 for an area based on their adverts (so these are advertised prices not sale prices).

Here is Grenoble

http://www.pap.fr/evaluation/prix-m2.php?t...LE&submit=1

the average is interesting

Although there has been a spring bounce in what advertisers are expecting the 12 month trend is -1.5% and the 6month trend -3.02%

Nice is +6% over 1 year but down 1% over the last six months.

Okay it is a bit sketchy as far as data goes.

SeLoger also has some data, for example for France

http://www.seloger.com/prix-immobilier.htm

and the Rhone Alpes

http://www.lacoteimmo.com/157361/209086/texte.htm

The FNAIM has said prices for properties (ex new builds) dropped 1.3% in May and 5.2% over 6 months. Houses dropped a mega -3.3% in May.

http://www.lefigaro.fr/immobilier/2008/06/...sent-en-mai.php

I got the figures for Annecy which someone asked me for. According to the Notaires prices dropped around 3% last year.

However a word of caution, most of the figures you see in France are based on a limited snapshop of the market. FNAIM looked at 12500 transactions over the whole country.

There are also an increasing number of estate agents going bust. I'll post a bit more info as I digest it but there is a lot coming in at the mo.

Thanks for the information.