On line (sur la ligne)

November 4, 2006

Happy to report we are back on line. It will probably take several days to recuperate from a grueling trip to Paris followed by a river boat cruise through the Burgundy and Côtes du Rhône wine regions. I have wanted to explore this region for quite some time. I went for the wine experience, Pam for the history and there is plenty of both. The only bad thing about the trip is we both caught a severe cold and our baggage didn't make it on the same flight back to the US.



We did a quick market study of real estate prices in various
locations. A small one bedroom apartment (condo) was going for around 125,000 to 150,000 euros depending on location. A detached home with 3 or more bedrooms started at about 350,000 euros. At an exchange rate of 1.25 dollars per euro puts the starter condo in the $175,000 range and the starter detached home in the $437,000 range. I 'd say just about equivalent to Northern Virginia. As you can tell, this was a broad brush, quick study (we spent little time at it ... actually only looked at window postings in two offices). We found one Century 21 office, one ERA office, no RE/MAX offices and many independents.
In French:

• Real estate office: bureau immobilier
• Real estate broker: immobilier sponsorisez
• Real estate agent: agent immobilier

I was able to get on the Internet from the ship (at $0.25/minute) and rapidly learned to appreciate my broadband connection here at home. I bought 240 minutes worth and used it all quickly. As a result, I was only able to update the Daily Market Watch data occasionally. I'm not quite sure if they were using satellite or WI-FI. The connection seemed to be a lot better when we were docked at a city, town or village.

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