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Everything you always wanted to know about France |
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France Voila - Newsletter #62
Pezenas - France - June, 2002 1. How to Rent Your Home Using Internet 2. On the Way to Pezenas, I saw a Blue Man 3. Get your Free Availability Calendar 4. Bias and Bigotry 5. The Way We Were Then 6. Aerial Photographs 7. Fair Warnings or Sales Pitch? 8. Property Investment in France 9. Nizas - The Last Long Siesta == The aim of this newsletter is to share information about France. There are over 550 articles in the archives at http://francevoila.com Sent from France by.. http://francevoila.com/ All you need to visit - or live - in France. Full details to subscribe, change address and unsubscribe are at the end of this newsletter. Write to me at mailto:tony@nizas.com I really do try to answer all letters - if you don't hear from me in a few days - write louder. ===== 1. How to Rent Your Home Using Internet In the last newsletter I asked for help in deciding the most important elements we must show on our property pages. I had hundreds of replies and the main comment was "location" - where is the property, how near the shops/beach/road/ etc. What sort of neighborhood - is it private etc. The second most requested information was "value for money". Many thanks to you all who replied, I have tried to reply individually, but please forgive me if you did not get a mail as I was overwhelmed. We started the first RentalsFrance website 5 years ago to help find guests for our own two apartments in our home in Nizas http://rentalsfrance.com/vigne/ Friends and neighbours asked us to add their properties and the site grew. Internet became larger and more people found it convenient, and fun, to search for their vacation home, tickets and travel ideas. Today the Internet is the single most important method of arranging travel according to a new report from American Express. "The Internet continues to make gains as a preferred tool for planning and booking leisure travel. Thirty-five percent of Americans say they will use the Internet to plan their vacation this year compared to 29 percent in 2001. Other planning resources mentioned are friends and family (30 percent vs. 21 percent in 2001), travel guides (16 percent vs. 9 percent), travel agents (15 percent, down from 20 percent), travel magazines (9 percent), and tour operators (6 percent, up from 3 percent)." - American Express Leisure Travel Index - May 15 2002 - However, Internet marketing is still very young and a lot of mistakes have been made (I know, I have made most of them). Today there are, literally, millions of web pages "advertising" a holiday home or a vacation package. Just search for - vacation accommodation - on Google - there are 461,000 results - we have 2 in the top 10 today I am pleased to see. Search for - France Holiday Home - 698,000 results - (we have 4 in the top 10) and so on. Keeping visible like this takes a lot of time and money - the Internet is not free - search engines are big business and they keep finding new ways to make us pay to be seen. An small individual website needs a budget of $3,000 minimum just for indexing, registration and key-word placement. In addition there are many hours of optimisation needed with skills which can only be learnt after years of experience. Good people are hard to find and charge from $60 to $200 per hour for these skills. However, I believe that the Internet is not much use for conventional advertising. Compared to newspapers, magazines and television, the Internet is currently ineffective and a bad investment. However, what it is good at is delivering information. A simple website can show as many photos as you wish and use thousands of words to describe your home. Links to maps, local websites and other points of interest are limited only by your imagination. We have taken your advice and are busy putting maps on every page, adding availability calendars for all properties and making it possible for owners to add information and comments from guests directly onto their property pages. Most importantly everyone wants good value, so we are determined to offer only the best price available for any property and to provide ways you can check prices on other sites. There is so much we have learnt that I am now writing a book coving all aspects of vacation rentals in France - the laws (see earlier newsletters) - how to get the right photos - how to write descriptions which people need - advertising both on and off the Internet - web hosting problems and solutions - search engine optimisation - copyright - taxes - health and safety rules - market profiles and demographics. My main problem is not what to write, but what to leave out. Whether you are planning to visit France, own a property in France or are in the travel and tourism industry, I would be delighted to hear what you want to know. mailto:tony@nizas.com ===== HELP WANTED: Dear Tony Having bought a house in the beautiful village of Cessenon-sur-Orb we are looking for someone / couple to look after the house ( which will be split into 3 units) who will be offered cheap long term accommodation throughout the summer and beyond in exchange for work in the house, i.e. cleaning, maintenance and seeing holiday guests in and out. If this appeals to anyone out there, please contact Bill or Ben on 04 67 77 91 58 or email mailto:billnben@net-up.com For further information please visit our websites www.cessenon.com and www.stthibery.com Kind regards Bill And Ben = OK Guys - now I really do deserve a link on your sites - you have had links from mine for over three years. You can get the code at... http://rentalsfrance.com/links/addurl.html If anyone would like to exchange links with our sites, please send me an e-mail mailto:tony@nizas.com ===== 2. On the Way to Pezenas, I Saw a Blue Man He was all blue, sitting on a blue tractor, pulling a blue trailer. He was like a crystal of copper sulfate, a Mediterranean Krishna in his chariot. It was early morning and I was on my way to work, he was going home after hours in the fields before the heat of the day. We looked as each other as we passed on the narrow farm road, we did not greet each other as we were from different worlds. His face was creased with the deep wrinkles from a life in the sun, the coating of blue had penetrated these lines on his face and they were darker than the rich cobalt coating on his skin. His clothes looked as if they would crack from the covering of blue chemicals which had dried to a hard crust. Once Upon a time I was a photographer I was told that I was a good photographer and I had some talent. I earned diplomas and won competitions, I was paid to take photos of Princes and Archbishops, naked people and mad people, bridges and sewers. I wish I still had my cameras and had taken a snap of the blue man on his tractor. On another morning I saw a golden brown girl on a golden brown horse. ===== PIPS WANTED Dear Tony, Ever since my 1st trip to Provence, I've been hooked on the Cavillion melons. I got friends & family equally hooked when we stayed at your Villa a couple of years back. Is there any way of procuring seeds? I'd love to at least try to grow them here. Although New Jersey (US) is known for their wonderful melons, NOTHING beats a Cavillion! Thanks, Renee' Jolley mailto:CarpeTwo@cs.com ===== 3. Get Your Free Availability Calendar Every property on our websites will have an on-line availability Calendar like the one at... http://rentalsfrance.com/languedoc/tarral/ This is a new property just added to our sites - very good value and with availability this year (have a look). If you have a website and would like to show availability for anything anywhere, you can have the same calendar on your site FREE. You have your own login and password and have full control of the calendar. Look at the advantages... No adverts FREE Simple to use (no software or scripts) Real time update FREE Day by day availability FREE and, umm - well it's free... Go to this page to sign up http://23333.com/calendar/ We are also supplying our own complete web-hosting service, so if you are looking for a reliable hosting company, we can offer you reliability and value. For more details e-mail us at... mailto:hosting@23333.com ===== A STAR IS BORN In a recent newsletter I mentioned a UK film company who were looking for people who were moving to France. We put a few people in touch and here is a reply . = Hi Tony, ...those film people you put me in touch with have decide to follow our renovation project in Normandy. They must be a bit potty as it is not the most exciting project (renovation of one end of a traditional farm semi) We are not doing it for the money as there is not much involved (the producer is keeping us sweet by promising to bring over copious quantities of real ale!). Look out for us though you'll need cable as it will be on the discovery channel (daytime TV) We are just doing it so we will have a record of the project and, I have to admit, a bit of motivation. I am hoping working to schedule will help push things along! In fact, thinking about it, they are looking for other renovation projects in the area to feature (complete or otherwise). Do you know of any that might be of interest? Its free advertising at least! Anyway, thanks for the contact. - Kind regards - Peter ===== 4. Bias and Bigotry I am biased, (an inclination - predisposition towards) I chose to live here in the South of France and specifically in the Herault valley in the heart of Languedoc because I belive it to be one of the best places in the world. Of course I have not been to every corner of every country in the world, I can be no more than the sum total of my experiences, but I traveled a bit and once counted over 82 countries I had visited, worked in or been asked to leave. Our choice to live here (Carole and I) was first the decision to live in France. We were living in the heart of the UK equivalent of "silicon valley" and had two children both under 3 years old. We both despaired for the education system in the UK ( in 1989, is it any better?) and looked elsewhere. Carole speaks French so that narrowed our choice to Scotland, Ireland and France. We had lived in Scotland for three years and loved it but it was time for a change, Ireland is magic - but it has been known to rain there and the wine is not as good as in France - so we came to France. We then spent 4 years looking around France - it is a vast and varied country and impossible to visit in only one lifetime, but sunshine, education and the "quality of life" led us to Nizas. I write in this newsletter and on our web-sites to reply to questions I am asked or things that interest me and I often write about our village of Nizas.. http://nizas.com ...and about life in general in the south of France. I had a recent exchange of e-mails with a reader who lives in Brittany accusing me of bias and unfair prejudice towards the area I live in and against other regions of France. I was going to publish them, but they are rather boring and in fact say no more than the fact that I prefer to live here, for reasons I publish, and he prefers to live in Brittany. In some recent copies of the weekly French magazine "L'Express" (February 1 and 7)... http://www.lexpress.fr ...there is a study of the 95 departments in France which looks at 70 important criteria for a "Happy Life". This study has been in operation since 1973 and regularly interviews 2,200 people in different socio-economic groups. In all over 100,000 people have been involved. You can access these fascinating charts, maps and studies through the archives of "L'Express", but here is a direct link into the first index page... http://francevoila.com/lexpress/link.html ...and just to make my point that many other people think the Herault is, overall, the best department in France http://francevoila.com/lexpress/winner.html This is not "bias" I am just reporting the facts, a bigot is a person with an obstinate and intolerant view. ===== BIG PRICE REDUCTIONS ON RENTALS For reasons which are mostly to do with "supply and demand", there are a lot of empty weeks in many homes and villas in France this year. We are advertising some Provence villas with 20% reduction. We have just been told of a week from July 13 still available at http://rentalsfrance.com/47carrouze/ The price is reduced from 1,095 to 700 for this week. ===== 5. The Way We Were Then I found this site while doing some research... http://www.archive.org/ it is a marvelous resource which, for reasons I don't understand is storing and publishing old versions of just about every web site created. It is certainly amusing, but also very useful because you can check if claims to be "on the web for 10 years" are really true. It is not complete and nor does it have every page of every version of every site, but some of my early websites from 1998 are there. Most embarrassing. ===== WEATHER Q: Hello tony: How is the weather in St. Remy in December, generally? A: An impossible question, it can be bright and warm or freezing and windy. The cold Mistral wind blows 30% of the time from September to May and appears from nowhere. I stay here in Nizas (slight bias there!) ===== 6. Aerial Photos With more people using Internet to select their vacation needs and with more properties being offered for vacation rental, it is clear that owners must give far more information in an honest and clear way if they are to rent their homes successfully. There is no doubt that good photographs help a great deal to show a property, we notice that a home with good clear and interesting photographs can get over twenty times the number of inquiries than one with photos which do not show the property well. However a photograph generally cannot show where the home is in relation to a village or town or other features like roads, railways or farms. We have made a special arrangement with a company here in the south of France who can take Aerial photographs of homes (or anything). This clearly shows where a property is in relation to other buildings, shops or other services. Our plan is to commission photos of all the towns and villages where we offer properties and to slink these photos to the sites. The first of these are for Nizas and Pezenas (no surprise there). You can see their site at... http://www.ulmphotos.com/ ...and some of the photos we are adding at http://nizas.com/aerial/ ===== CATHOLIC EDUCATION Q: I really enjoy your newsletter and look forward to its arrival. I have been thinking of moving to the south of France and am curious about high schools for our thirteen year old son. We are Catholic and I was wondering if there are good Catholic schools in the south. Also, are there international schools in the Nice-Cannes corridor? Thank you - Bob A: Hello Bob - The education system in France is excellent. The standard is high and it makes no difference where you choose to live, all regions have the same structure and syllabus. There is no official religion in France (since the revolution) but there are private Catholic schools in all towns where the education system is the same, there are some fees to pay for the private sector but these are small. Nice-Cannes has several International schools. Try this site for more information: http://www.ecis.org/ Tony ===== 7. Fair Warnings or Sales Pitch? I am often writing about problems visitors to France have had with stolen luggage from cars. I do this because it does happen and the aim of this newsletter is to tell the truth about travel in France. These thefts are a problem in every country where there are tourists and this is not unique to France. France is a beautiful, varied and friendly country, it is the most visited country in the world. There is more history, interest, art, culture and quality food than just about anywhere else. There are also plenty of magazines and web-sites which will tell you about the fragrant blossom on the trees, the fresh bread and cheeses in the street markets and the happy people cycling to their work in the fields. I don't think anyone is put off coming to France because I warn people to be careful. I have been told that a group of tourists did not come to France because they learnt from this newsletter that there is real bullfighting here in the South, but if you would rather not hear about these things, please let me know and I will put on my rose-tinted glasses and write about the wild herbs and poppy fields. So here is another warning from a reader... = HI Tony -- We would like to add our comments to your admonition to NEVER leave anything in the trunk of your car. We are experienced travellers in Western Europe. From 1996 to the present we have driven and parked all over Spain, Portugal, Ireland, Belgium, Luxembourg and France in rented autos -- many times on back roads and in isolated areas. Perhaps we had gotten too complacent! Over a year ago we checked out of our Avignon hotel and, on an impulse, we stopped to walk on the Pont St.-Benezet Bridge on our way out of town. We parked in a public parking lot where people were coming and going - a highly visible area. When we returned, the car looked fine with no visible damage - except the glove box was hanging open. When we opened the trunk, it was empty - everything taken. On our windshield was a note from an observer describing two "hommes", their auto and their license plate number. We took this note to the local police station and they were clearly unimpressed. We did get a detailed police report from them and even though our travel insurance was limited to $500 per person for loss, our homeowner's insurance policy covered everything beyond that. A word of warning -- we carry money, airline tickets and credit cards, etc. in a money pouch under our clothing. But we forgot about credit card slips -- many of them have the credit card number and expiry date printed in full. We cancelled our credit cards and waited three days in Avignon for replacements. When we received them they were "un-magnetized" so they would not work in regular credit card machines. The numbers had to be typed into those machines and we found that in small villages, they may not have the proper machines to do that. Fortunately, we had our debit cards as back up. This has not dimmed our enthusiasm for travel in France -- we love the country and people and will be returning, only much wiser this time!!! We look forward to every "issue" of your newsletter. Larry & Sally, Vancouver, Washington USA ===== CAR RENTAL COLLISION DAMAGE: I got this reply in response to my words on car rental agents making "unfair" charges for damage. = On the car rental blocked deposit issue -- this doesn't happen if one takes the Collision Damage Waiver/fire and theft insurance as part of the prepaid rental. And that is something that I always encourage my clients to do anyway. I find that if there is an accident or any damage, there are far fewer hassles if the insurance carried on the car is European-based. Many people think their credit card offers coverage; first, they need to check to make sure...that isn't always the case in every country; second, ask if it is primary or secondary coverage. If secondary, the driver will be expected to pay for the damage first, then put in for reimbursement from his credit card company's insurer and jump through all the hoops of proof that it demands. Again, usually far easier to just take out the CDW/fire/theft insurance through the car rental company to begin with, and avoid the blocked deposit or cash deposit requirement at the same time. Sally Watkins, Certified Travel Counselor http://sallywatkins.com = Very good advice, but the insurance charges are astronomical - I suppose it is best to just accept them as a part of the car rental price (which they should be anyway). = In another mail, Sally brought up the point about "extra charges " for rentals. Are linens included, cleaning charges etc. We believe that these charges should be always included in the rental price. Many owners see these charges as a way of getting extra cash revenue. We always advise owners to show one complete price for all items including cleaning, towels, linen, local taxes etc. With the increase in the number of properties offered and the competition this will bring to the rental market, we should be seeing better services and more competitive prices. ===== 8. Property Investment in France I get a lot of mail about buying property in France as an investment. == Hi, I wonder if you can help me. We are interested in buying houses in the south of France, restoring them and then renting them through companies such as yourselves. However to decide what houses constitute good investments for this we need to know what kind of income can be derived. I was hoping therefore that perhaps you could give me an idea of what amount of the year you would expect to be able to rent out a house for, and if possible what types/areas are better/worse for this ? Thank you for your help, and we look forward to hopefully doing business in the future - Jules == Hello Jules There is a strong demand for private rental property in France - villas, apartments and cottages - from some of the 73 million visitors to France each year. But to focus on this as an investment opportunity requires a lot of careful research and some luck. Our business here in the South of France is supplying the right property to our client, who is the principally the renter not the owner. This gives us a very clear idea of what is required by the renter. Not surprisingly the demands of the renter change, yet there are some consistent requirements we see as essentials if a property is going to be rented successfully. As in all property, location is the most important criteria. Next is the "charm" the "feel" the property gives to match the dream - the concept the renter has for the chosen location. The third consideration is convenience, the access to services and the support infrastructure needed to qualify the perceived "dream" which the location suggests. Fourthly the whole package must be good value, financially and emotionally. Most of that wordy paragraph is subjective and we find the successful properties are the ones where the owner has found somewhere they personally love and where they are able to communicate this feeling in the way they have presented and described their property. The unsuccessful properties are the ones where the owner tries to make the maximum gain for the minimum effort. You must analyse your target market, determine the demographic profile of your potential customer, then select the method of approaching this market and the cost of marketing. Study the history of this profile and attempt to extrapolate the occupancy rate and thereby look at your return on investment both for the capital cost and the marketing cost. You also have to be aware of changes in legislation and taxations which will affect your profit. In some areas there is now a big over-supply of certain types of accommodation, we are seeing prices of rentals dropping at the same time as demands for additional services increasing. Is is also very clear to us that the cost of successfully marketing these rental properties is increasing. In most regions, at this moment, we are seeing four times as many people looking for property to buy, with the intention of renting, as there are properties for sale. This is causing the price of properties in France to rise fast at the moment. Different regions and differing properties have completely different rental profiles, Some properties we can expect to rent for over 40 weeks a year, others we can anticipate only 10 weeks income. For winter rentals (apart from the ski regions) the suitable areas and the properties are very specific. Tony ===== FREE ADVERT: Anne Soulet, French US resident of Boston, and Yoga Teacher at MIT Medical Dept. is offering a Stress Reduction week 8/31 - 9/7/2002 in an upscale villa named "le Grand Darene" with swimming pool and a macrobiotic cook will specialize on vegetarian whole foods for health and vitality. For more info. write her at... Asoulet@hotmail.com = I don't know why I do these free adverts, but if you have something interesting to advertise write to me, or put your advert in our free classifieds section at http://francevoila.com/classifieds/ ===== 9. Nizas - The Last Long Siesta The population of our department, Herault, is 900,000 people, this is officially being encouraged by government investment to increase to 1.3 million over the next 25 years. This will a migration rather than the by-product of too many afternoon siestas. The migration is planned to be mainly for new high-tech industries being created using the output from the local universities, and by people coming to this region to retire. In Nizas we have the new mayor and his "team" for the next five years. They represent the right wing traditional farming community. They only just got in by a handful of votes, their opposition stood for change, expansion and enterprise. There are some advantages with the new team, the mayor makes the shortest speeches on record, sometimes only four words. No money is being wasted on things like school books or festivals, only useful things like water supplies and roads to the farms. After thousands of years the economy of this region will change from a farming and agriculture base to a technology and service economy. Nizas, and a few other little villages are the last bastions of this traditional lifestyle. My dream is to record this change with my camera, all I need is a few more days each week and ten more hours every day. The hot weather has arrived, temperatures in the high 30s are here and the afternoon siesta can be enjoyed. If you walk through the narrow medieval streets of Nizas between 2pm and 5pm most afternoons the only sound will be the muffled snoring through the shuttered windows (well nearly the only sound). Pezenas, our nearest town, is coming alive for the summer with the artists workshops, these craftsmen are continuing the tradition of centuries. When the Lords and Princes with their Ladies (and ladies) came here 700 years ago, Pezenas was their official "court" and their jewellers and artists, actors and entertainers came with them. There are more photos on our sites of Nizas and Pezenas, including some aerial photos taken this month. http://nizas.com/ Our friend Ray Trop and his horse Dobbin have last been reported approaching the Swiss border, see more about this raving lunatic and his troubadour's journey through France, raising money to help autistic children at... http://www.black-et-ray.org/entryuk.html ===== STARTING A BED AND BREAKFAST Tony - I am about to move to our home in France on a permanent basis. Could you please advise on the procedure and potential for B&B? The house is a very well located Manor in 17 acres, recently refurbished to a high standard. It also has a separate converted Pigeonnier. The property is located mid way between Bayeux and St Lo in Normandy and is ideally located for D Day beaches, all aspects of Norman history and a tranquil base from which to explore Normandy. - Graham = Hello Graham The property sounds great - but for a business (any business) do your research. How many visitors, how many competitors, what will your selling advantage be, what is your operating cost, what will your sales cost be to get to a viable rental level and the conversion cost for each client. All this plus many other straightforward business questions to determine your return on investment. For a BB you register with the department for a licence and then get an agrement certificate. Maximum is 15 people otherwise it is a hotel. (different rules). Don't forget tourism taxes. As in all property business, the key is location. Bonne chance ===== We love to receive your letters and comments and we really try to answer all mail but it does get lost, filtered or vanishes somewhere to a planet of lost e-mails, (there they are turned into wire coat hangers in our wardrobes) so if you write and don't hear from me, please write again. mailto:tony@nizas.com |