My French bank Caisse d’Epargne has today announced that it lost around 600 million Euros in a trading incident. That’s one hell of an incident! I would consider losing a ten pound note on a night out to be an incident. Losing 600 million Euros is more like a disaster.
Although the bank has also announced that this loss will not affect any of its customers, I shall be keeping a close eye on the French financial news in the coming months and perhaps hold off sending any more money out to France. Just in case!
We have already seen some promising activity for the 2009 holiday season at La Pagerie with the main August weeks already reserved. This is the earliest we have taken bookings for the summer season so although all of the news programmes are talking about the credit crunch it appears we still want our holidays planned.
French property is reflecting similar falls in value in line with the UK with prices falling around nearly 6% since this time last year. With the French banks also tightening up their rules for lending money this is also affecting the housing market. Not good news for those looking to move in France or those looking to finance a house with a French mortgage but great news if you are a cash buyer!
Although there are no statistics for each of the regions of France it would appear that those in the Centre and Alps regions have seen the biggest falls whilst those in the South East of France are staying static.
Our house is heated through an oil central heating system which at the time of installation appeared to be a good move. We are not connected to mains gas and didn’t want to have an external gas source which I think looks ugly and can spoil some beautiful houses unless carefully hidden away.
However, since our first oil delivery back in 2006 the prices have risen by nearly 70% and this was quite a shock when the last delivery came. I noticed today though that the price of a barrel of oil has now dropped to under 80 dollars from the high of over 140 dollars back in the summer. Hopefully this will mean the next delivery will be easier to swallow!
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