Tales from the Front Line

It’s Snow Joke

by Nigel Hindle
on April 1, 2010 in Buying in the Alps

Thankfully Alpine glaciers and snow levels have not retreated as quickly as Alpine property buyers did eighteen months ago.

The ski chalet, arguably one of the most discretionary of property purchases, was, quite understandably, pretty much at the bottom of everyone’s list of priorities, along with the super yacht and private jet.

However, much like the piste conditions at the moment, the snow is back and so are the buyers. Not to the extent that we need to issue an avalanche warning as buyers are not buying ‘anything’ at ‘any price’. But with one agent we know, located in a top French resort, having sold five chalets between Christmas and New Year and others reporting greater levels of demand even from UK buyers, market confidence in the Alps is at last drifting back.