France popularity riding high

French property most popular option for second homeowners once again

With three recent reports putting France top of the popularity ladder, French property market is riding high among those looking for overseas property.

As recently reported, in newly announced research from both Conti and jointly from Savills International and HomeAway.co.uk, properties in France are the most popular among people looking for property overseas.Now Knight Frank, in a new survey commissioned for its annual Private View magazine, has reached the same conclusion. The Private View Where in the World Second Homes survey asked wealth advisers to create the perfect portfolio of four second homes around the world on behalf of their clients. Coming out on top yet again, France accounted for almost a quarter of the properties in the survey respondents’ portfolios. Knight Frank identifies the reason behind this popularity as the amount of options available to prospective homebuyers across the range of location types. Indeed, France was the most popular, or second favourite, country for a home across all the location types of City, Coastal, Rural and Ski.In a separate, recent report, the Knight Frank Ski Report Property Index for the second quarter of 2011, the property agent found that many French ski resorts recorded strong year-on-year growth. Among the report’s top performing ski resorts around the world, French resorts occupy all of the top four spots. Meg�ve is the star performer, having registered an annual growth of 4.3% in property prices. In second spot is M�ribel, which experienced 3.1%, then Val d’Is�re and Courchevel 1850, where prices rose by 3% in each.