Is French real estate worth investing in? Understanding is very important.

Compared with China, there are many differences in French real estate investment. If you buy a house in France, you need to know the following points.

In France, any individual (including foreigners) can buy and sell real estate freely. However, if enterprises, especially foreign enterprises, invest in real estate in France for profit, they will be subject to tax restrictions by the authorities, reducing and limiting their profit margins. If you invest in your first house, you can get many tax benefits, especially VAT exemption. However, if it's your second home, or if it's used for renting out a profitable property before selling it, the tax authorities will not give any preferential treatment, and will also use high value-added tax (currently 34.5%) to limit it.

Different from the 70-year property right of Zhongfang, any French property once purchased is a permanent property right and can be inherited. Property tax must be paid when buying a house, and the tax amount depends on the town where the property is located. The richer the town, the less the real estate tax, and the poorer the town, the higher the real estate tax. Because this tax is a local tax, cities and towns with many enterprises and taxes will not increase the tax burden, so that residents can support the urban rulers.

At present, the average price of apartments in France is about 3,400 euros per square meter (1 euro is about RMB 7.7 yuan), and that of detached houses is about 1.8 million euros per square meter. But this is only the average price. In fact, French real estate varies greatly according to cities and regions. The most expensive cities are still Paris and some towns in Paris, as well as the rich C? te d 'Azur in southern France. Some big cities such as Lyon, Bordeaux and Nantes also have high housing prices, while rural and northern areas have low housing prices.

Take Paris as an example. At present, the average house price is about 8,300 euros per square meter, but the average price of some high-end lots in the downtown, western and southern districts has exceeded 0,000 euros per square meter/kloc-0. Because French primary and secondary schools also adopt the principle of admission by place of residence, some good school blocks, such as the Latin quarter of Paris, are extremely expensive, while the low-rent housing blocks in the north and east of Paris are cheap and difficult to rise.

A China native surnamed Dai who invested in a school district in the Latin quarter of Paris told me that the property she bought in the 1990s has now appreciated at least twice. A Chinese surnamed Lin bought a self-occupied property in a block where immigrants from Northeast Africa and Muslims from North Africa live in Paris. He said that his house has only appreciated less than twice in the past 30 years.

According to the data obtained by the author from the Paris Notary Association and the French Institute of Statistics and Economics, Chinese in France are very active in buying real estate, and the proportion of owning their own real estate has reached as high as 70%, far exceeding 58% of ordinary people. At present, there are not many domestic investors in French real estate, and they generally aim at high-end real estate. Some good locations and high-priced high-end apartments and suites have attracted investors from Chinese mainland, while good high-end villas and castles have begun to see investors from China. However, the person in charge of an international real estate enterprise said that the amount of China people's investment in France and Western Europe is still less than that in English-speaking countries such as Britain, the United States and Canada, which may be caused by language problems.

A notary who specializes in receiving foreign investors in France told me that the people who can't get around investing in real estate in France are notaries. Unlike Britain and the United States, which mainly rely on lawyers, and China, which rely on real estate agents, the French real estate transaction law requires notarization. Secondly, if there is no fixed income in France, it is difficult to borrow money to buy a house. Therefore, foreigners who invest in French real estate generally have to pay in full. In short, when you invest in buying a house in France, you must listen to the opinions of local people, especially professionals, grasp the real price of the property and avoid buying defective properties.

Excluding inflation, the price of the French real estate market has remained stable in recent years, and the current annual appreciation rate is about 1.5%-2%. In fact, the real estate market in most European countries (except Spain), including France, is a long-term and stable appreciation project, with few ups and downs. France is not a good choice for the appreciation of real estate at present.