 Poster: A snowHead
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@JoandFamHall, I have an apartment in Le Monetier-les-Bains, Serre Chevalier. My summer season is almost as busy as winter. There's a railway station in Briancon with overnight trains to Paris and then onto Eurostar to the UK.
Briancon is a fair sized town just 10km away, with a walled citadel and beautiful old buildings and church.
If you want to fly, Turin and Grenoble are within 2 hours. Monetier is at 1500m, skiing goes up to 2750m.
We rent our apartment out all year round, some quiet spells, but usually we have a booking of some sort in every month of the year. Our pool, although expensive, improves the summer bookings. There's mountain biking and road cycling (we're on this years Tour de france route) as we're at the bottom of the Col du Lauteret. A summer visit confirmed it as somewhere we wanted to spend time, we'd already skied there two or three times.
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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Happy to cover the interest on the mortgage
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Depending on your mortgage, that's not a foregone conclusion. And local charges and taxes are not insignificant. You need to tot up the likely net costs of each week you're there yourselves, compared to the cost of renting ad hoc for those weeks. Summer rental prices are generally cheap as there's big surplus of accommodation for rent throughout the Alps. Christmas, New Year and the four french "vacances scolaires" weeks in February/March are when the big rents come in. Ads for French apartments will generally include details of co-pro charges and the two local taxes. French income tax might also come into the equation if you are renting.
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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I mean, ads for apartments which are for sale - not rent.
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
You need to Login to know who's really who.
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My mortgage interest at the moment is less than £120 per year. That's tax deductible, but the rest isn't. Local taxes for mine are 650 and 720 per annum. Newer properties will probably have higher taxes, older ones smaller ones.
Electricity is 45€ a month, which includes hot water, lighting and cooking. Heating is communal and comes out of the copropriété charges which also includes communal broadband, our pool and sauna and keeping the communal areas and garden clean and tidy. Around 2K per annum.
Water and sewerage charges are around 250€. Cleaning and Laundry are about another 2k depending of course on how many bookings we have. 60€ cleaning, and 10% of rental charges for the management. Laundry about 35€ for 4 people.
If you rent out and make a profit, you will have French tax to pay, but even if you don't, you will still have to complete the tax form, although there are online companies who will do it for you for around 300€.
If you rent out, you will need to regularly buy new linen and towels, replace furniture etc etc. Sometimes this comes as an unexpected expense. Our futon sofa was broken in February, and had the apartment been fully occupied the following week, we would have been stuffed !!
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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@Hells_Bells , those are very helpful figures. Thank you. I guess no one actually makes money out of this. I'm trying to avoid co-pros but on our budget that is hard, and properties few and far between.
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You'll need to Register first of course.
You'll need to Register first of course.
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I'm trying to avoid co-pros
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Why is that, as a matter of interest? Without a co-pro there'll be a lot you have to sort out yourselves, and unless you have someone local on hand, and/or speak good French, that might be difficult.
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I guess no one actually makes money out of this.
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But is that the key question? Your objective is not, presumably, to make money? Or as someone already said, a BTL (or a different investment) in the UK would probably be the optimum answer.
Perhaps the key question is "how much is our time in our second home in the Alps going to cost us?". It's not easy to work that out in advance, but you can ball-park it. You then have to compare that with just renting somewhere nice for the weeks you want to be out there. The more time you spend there, the better value it becomes, of course, as so many of the costs are fixed!
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@pam w, that's my feeling, you may feel at the mercy of the co-prop in a big block but they do all the sorting out of repairs and getting tenders for work etc which is tough for English speakers who are mostly out of the country (unless they have very good telephone French). And costs are pooled, meaning you only have to pay a small proportion.
@JoandFamHall, @Hells Bells gives an example of what other destinations have to offer - it is worth looking around to see what you can find for a similar price with access to other decent sk areas, unless you are already sold on BLB. If nothing else, it will confirm your choice.
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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Thank you again . I am looking at all areas. I think with a lot of buyers having had their searches 'halted' over the past couple of years, it has meant there are lots of people ready to buy now... so properties are going quickly. I thougth they'd be more available at this time of year. I need to slow down a bit I think. But I can definitely see your point about sharing the issues if you are in a co-pro.
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One of the important things is snow-clearing. Somebody officious in our co-pro had a big argument over pricing with the only realistic candidate for doing our snow-clearing and the guy just said "OK, clear your own snow" and left us to it. Fortunately for him we were inundated and it became very difficult to move round the site and the covered car park was unreachable. We quite enjoyed it, in a way. One friend asked us to go and check on something in his apartment and having given up when the snow drifts were thigh high we went back and picked up our snowshoes.
But the co-pro won't be any use when the flat above yours starts leaking into your bedroom. I had to sort out a situation like that when both the leaker and the leaked-upon were apartments belonging to friends, and both full of renters. It was an eye opener - both flats were smoking hot, and the renters were all sitting round in vest tops. I persuaded the upstairs flat to switch off water at the main overnight and met a plumber there next day.
Beware of very small co-pros - our development had 88 flats so there was always a fairly sensible (or at any rate apathetic) majority and the "syndic" (the professional management company) would get their way. If you live in a place with just a few proprietaires, especially if they are resident, you will be totally at their mercy.
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