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Paris, mon paramour

Extracts from an article in The Daily Telegraph, Saturday, January 20, 2007

With faster Channel trains promised this year, buying in the French capital has never been more attractive. Aileen Reid is hooked

This was January 2004, and I was in Paris on the hunt for a small flat to renovate as a holiday let. I pictured myself as a frequent Eurostar traveller, enjoying weekends of culture and food, while the rest of the time the flat would be let out to tourists, topping up my pension. And it appears I am part of a growing trend - latest figures show the British have overtaken the Americans in Paris: we now make up more than one in 10 foreign buyers there (second only to the Italians).

Despite its romantic appeal, I had chosen Paris for reasons of the head, not the heart. I had had a hankering for Italy. Central Paris, however, has it all - a year-round holiday rental market, but with property prices 30 to 60 per cent lower than in London, Rome or Venice. In Paris, 8 or 9 per cent from a holiday let is a realistic yeild - even if it's occupied for only 65 per cent of the year. The trick is to choose carefully, in a tourist area.

Finding somewhere was another matter. Unlike the UK, Paris has few large, countrywide or even citywide agents. The most thorough method is to pick your area and pound the streets, getting to know all the local independent agencies, few of which have their own websites.

A quicker alternative is to use a flat-finder. The name of Marie-Pierre Saint Martin, a London-based Parisian who had been running Paris Dream Home for eight years - kept cropping up during my online research. Her rates were fairly standard, at 3 per cent of the sale price, and she seemed to think my criteria were realistic.

The area I favoured was the Marais, on the Right Bank, north of Notre Dame and west of the Bastille. It has cock-eyed medieval houses in narrow, winding streets of cafes, bars and small shops. Tourists often stay there.

A two-day return trip in May yielded richer pickings. I saw an idiosyncratic little place on the rue St Antoine, in the best part of the Marais, round the corner from the exquisite Place des Vosges, "the most beautiful city square in the world". It was magnificent.

Buying took, as is usual, just over three months, from the signing of the compromis de vente - the equivalent of exchange of contract - to the final signing.

The question now was how much work to do? In Paris, property prices are very precisely linked to floor area, so it is hard to add capital value, which accounts for the shocking state of many of the places you see. I, however, was looking for income, and it is here that the average Parisian is missing a trick.

Lisa Dewar runs Regency, an agency with upmarket flats and houses all over Italy and France, and she had a look and told me how it was. "You have a choice. You could just give it a lick of paint and a basic new kitchen and bathroom, as locals tend to do, and get maybe €1,000 (£675) a month on a long-term rental. Or you could do it up with beautiful, sleek kitchen and bathroom, and get €800 or €900 a week as a holiday flat. But the mezzanine has to go. Your clients will always be banging their heads on it."

Six months later, my flat was effectively reconstructed. A good bathroom is essential, as American renters won't consider anywhere that does not have a power shower. I also went in for lots of equipment: washer-dryer, microwave, satellite TV and broadband internet access.

So am I now a part-time Parisienne, hopping on and off the Eurostar, brioche in one hand and glass of absinthe in the other? Alas no - but for a good reason. It's been nearly a year since the first paying guests arrived, and since then my flat has hardly been empty.