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Buying/Renting a house in Paris

Henrick_2
Posts: 7 Forumite
Hi everyone,
I'm from London and recently I've been called for a job in Paris.Thus, I would be pleased if someone can give me an idea of the cost of living there, about house renting and buying especially. Which is better, buying or renting a house??
Thanks for help
I'm from London and recently I've been called for a job in Paris.Thus, I would be pleased if someone can give me an idea of the cost of living there, about house renting and buying especially. Which is better, buying or renting a house??
Thanks for help
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Comments
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Wouldn't you be better off on a French forum? As you're going to live in France you can speak French, right?0
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I had a friend who rented there in 2012 and she was a 20 minute walk from the Louvre and was paying the same as it cost at the time to live out in commuterville London. Rental prices have risen but so have London rents since then, so I'd expect no surprises if you're used to London, but maybe better location and easier commute.0
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looknohands wrote: »I had a friend who rented there in 2012 and she was a 20 minute walk from the Louvre and was paying the same as it cost at the time to live out in commuterville London. Rental prices have risen but so have London rents since then, so I'd expect no surprises if you're used to London, but maybe better location and easier commute.
All that may well be true, but are the salaries in Paris as high as they are in London? Rather than looking at monetary cost perhaps it would be better to look at the proportion of disposable income required.0 -
True the disposable income might not be so high,
London - £1,987.90
Paris - £1,665.77
But the cost of living is much cheaper, average one bed apartment is 50% less.
In fact in total you are 13% better off, groceries are more but services, accommodation and transport are less.
http://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/city_result.jsp?country=France&city=Paris
The only issue would be if you moved back to the UK having had the wage disparity any savings wouldn't go as far here.0 -
I don't know about renting, but certainly for buying you need to understand French property taxation; it's quite significant and the police will turn up at your door if you don't pay it (as someone I know found out after returning to their ski apartment after a year without having the mail redirected.)0
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I'm not the most clued up on this but one of my best friend moved there for a graduate job. She found it really difficult to find a good place to rent as she had just moved to France (due to not having a French guarantor). She found a lot of the rentals were sublets and there didn't seem to be any security & she had a few dodgy landlords....
Ask your new company for help & advice. My friends company didn't offer much help. She might have just had bad luck?!0 -
She found a lot of the rentals were sublets and there didn't seem to be any security & she had a few dodgy landlords....
Artificially distorting price signals leads you straight to grey and black markets.0 -
Many flats are sublets and utterly dodgy schemes in London as well.
It is less common to share in Paris compared to London, and tenants have much stronger security of tenure in France.
It is probably easier to find a place outside of central Paris itself.
Trains are much cheaper than here, and companies must subsidise 50% of the monthly ticket, so overall you would probably only spend only 20-40 euros a month.
The best areas in Paris and around are in the west.0 -
I think its a lot more common to have long term rentals in Paris so that seems to be the reason for so many sub-lets (I think standard is 3 years).
I think you need to have a french bank account, french reference & french address to apply for a 'proper' rental which expats won't necessarily have straight away (and/or they only want a short term rental to see how things go) so they're probably not getting the pick of the bunch.0 -
Googled 'Renting in France' and came up with this..,seems fairly informative
http://www.expatica.com/fr/housing/renting/Renting-a-property-in-France_101131.html0
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