French News Archive

Property Market

Dordogne Retains Top Spot for British Buyers

Tuesday 01 May 2012

The Dordogne and the Alpes-Maritimes are the most popular places to buy property in France amongst international buyers, according to a recent study.

Over 15% of all residential property sales in these departments last year were to buyers from abroad. It was a very similar picture in 2010.

The figures come from the annual review of the property market in France for 2011 by the French notaires.

The Dordogne has been consistently popular with British buyers, and whilst the number of Brits buying on the Cotes d'Azur (Alpes-Maritimes) has slowed in recent years, there are many other foreign nationals who have been only to happy too take their place.

Other departments that were popular with international buyers in 2011 were Haute-Savoie (13%), Lot (13%), Creuse (11%), Charente (11%), Aude (10%) and Ain (10%), shown coloured pink on the image (right) below.

Across the country a total of 5.3% of property purchases were to international buyers. This is in line with the pattern of sales over the past three years, but down from 6.3% in 2004.

The figures exclude purchases in the French capital Paris, which always figures high in such analyses.



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