Barnes, another luxury-property broker, has 1,250 listings of more than a million euros in Paris and the nearby Yvelines and Hauts-de-Seine counties, twice as many as 18 months ago, according to its President Thibault de Saint Vincent.
‘Quality Products’
“We’ve never had so many quality products on the market in Paris,” Saint Vincent said during a visit to a 425 square-meter duplex apartment in western Paris.
Once home to fashion designer Pierre Balmain, the apartment had been renovated with gold-plated dining-room walls, Indian and Brazilian marble in the bathrooms of its four suites and carries a price tag of 12.9 million euros.
“People are leaving for a number of reasons: taxes, the economy, family,” Saint Vincent said. “One never knows whether tax laws are definitive or whether they will worsen.”
Those concerns have hurt Paris property prices, which fell more steeply in the capital city’s most affluent areas.
In the chic Saint-Germain-des-Pres and Champs-Elysees areas, Paris’s priciest, average apartment prices fell 18 percent in the second quarter from a year earlier to just over 12,000 euros a square meter, according to notaries and national statistics office Insee. In the Ecole Militaire district near the Eiffel tower, they fell 11 percent to 10,510 euros.
Beats London
That compares with the 3 percent average price drop in Paris from the August 2012 peak, after they trebled since 2000.
The drop lured to the City of Light buyers not only from China to Russia but also Middle-Eastern investors escaping unrest in countries from Syria and Egypt to Libya and Tunisia.