Euro Crash: Continental Real Estate on the Cheap
Just a few months ago, purchasing a second home in Europe seemed like an impossibility — let alone a terrible investment.
But with the rebound in the American economy and the euro coming close to parity with the dollar — down 12 percent in 2015 alone — that villa on Lake Como isn’t looking so expensive after all.
Since Christmas, real estate experts say, savvy buyers have been taking advantage of their increased purchasing power and plucking up fire-sale properties in desirable markets in Italy, France, Spain and beyond. Brokers are calling it “the dollar effect,” and it’s been driving serious sales for the past 6 months.
Take Italy. Before the country entered the Eurozone in 1999, foreigners joked that they’d have to haul wheelbarrows of lira to the market just to buy food. But prices soared over the next decade, making owning that Italian villa out of reach for most. Since the global financial crisis, however, Italy has been slow to bounce back.
“When the recession hit around 2008, there was a drop off in the number of Americans both buying and also visiting Italy for holidays,” says Rupert Fawcett, head of international real estate brokerage Italian desk of international real estate firm Knight Frank.
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