With London's property market looking shaky, British investors and developers are turning their attention to Paris.
Six developers from Britain and a handful from the United States are hunting for refurbishment opportunities in central Paris, according to Fiona Dermody, a Paris-based residential consultant at estate agency Knight Frank.
London-based City Lofts Group, meanwhile, is already at work, developing a set of designer apartments in Paris where residents have access to hotel-style facilities, including a concierge and gym. The company will finish refurbishing 20 apartments in an art nouveau building on the fashionable Avenue Victor Hugo in July this year.
Seventeen of the apartments have already been sold to French, British, Irish, Russian and Middle Eastern buyers at prices ranging from Euro325,000 (HK$3.73 million) for a studio to Euro3.3 million for a four-bedroom apartment.
The developer also plans to revamp an adjoining mansion house. 'We chose Paris first because of its proximity to London,' said Ross Mansoori-Dara, co-founder of City Lofts. 'Also, prices in this area of Paris are half those for comparable areas in London, so there is plenty of room for growth.'
The Paris property market was less inflated than London's because the French took out smaller mortgages, he said. Other British investors are crossing the English Channel too, looking to Paris and other overseas destinations for better returns than those available at home.