French property market 'should remain unscathed'

02-Apr-2008

First-time buyers considering a mortgage abroad may be interested to learn that the French property market should be relatively unaffected by the credit crunch, according to an expert.

According to French property firm Leapfrog, the French market should be reasonably unscathed by the current credit situation due to tax reform and a lower level or pricing relative to wages than in the UK.

The group also stated that there should be no significant change in the lending capacity of French banks as its mortgage market has not been as loose as those in the UK and the US.

Commenting on the issue, Nick Dowlatshahi, managing director of Leapfrog Properties, said: "In France, they don't give buy-to-let mortgages or non-status or self-cert mortgages so they've had little of the effect of the credit crunch as opposed to the UK.

"They will continue to lend at 100 per cent and so on, there's no change in their lending capacity basically.

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