“We’ve really seen an influx of foreign buyers snapping up properties, especially in western Paris,” said Alexander Kraft, Chairman of Sotheby’s International Realty for France & Monaco. “They’ve seen that prices in France compared to other major cities such as London, New York, Hong-Kong are still comparatively affordable.”

Prices in London’s upscale Knightsbridge and South Kensington are about 20,000 euros per square meters, and start from 15,000 euros for “something decent” on Lexington avenue in New York’s Upper East Side, compared with about 10,000 for similar properties in Paris’s 16th arrondissement, Barnes’s Saint Vincent said.

Americans Return

American showbiz personalities and executives of technology companies, who may have steered clear of the Paris property market following the drop in the dollar in the early 2000, are also coming back, he said.

“Americans have come back at all sorts of price levels,” said Marie-Helene Lundgreen, director of Daniel Feau’s international department Belles Demeures de France, during a tour of a private mansion that’s up for sale in a gated community near the Arc de Triomphe. The mansion includes an indoor swimming pool and a guest house, and is for sale at 33 million euros.

“Some have budgets of 30, 40 or even 50 million euros,” Lundgreen said.

One of Paris’s most expensive estate on Sotheby’s listing is a 75-million-euro mansion of 3,200 square meters with a swimming pool and a sauna in the basement, 2,000 square meters of gardens and a roof terrace.

Below Average

The layers below the top-of-the-line properties, meanwhile, have been hit hard as the market has been damped by an increase in the capital-gains tax on second homes, increased levies on vacant properties, tightened requirements for tax reductions for buy-to-let investments and a planned law that will cap rents.

“Since the presidential election last year, the market for normal luxury apartments of between 1 and 3 million euros has totally crashed,” said Sotheby’s Kraft. “Really wealthy Parisian families either completely left the country, or said: this isn’t the time to buy, I’m going to lay low.”