Tuesday, July 15, 2008
First Industrial Realty Trust Expands Into France
First Industrial Realty Trust, Inc. (NYSE: FR: 25.35, -1.27, -4.77%), a leading provider of industrial real estate supply chain solutions, today announced the opening of a new office in Paris, France. Paris is France's largest industrial real estate market, with nearly one-third of the country's total industrial space. Christophe Chauvard has joined First Industrial as country director for France and will lead new business development by providing logistics solutions to customers through the acquisition, development, redevelopment, leasing and property management of industrial real estate in the region. Mr. Chauvard reports to Jan Scheers, managing director of Europe.
Friday, July 11, 2008
OUR OWN PIECE OF PARIS
Oh la la! Vive la France and all that ... every Francophile in Britain will identify with the rapturous outpourings of Ellie Nielsen for whom words like 'camembert', 'alors' or 'tant pis' send her serotonin levels soaring to excess.
As for the word 'Paris', well, hey, when it comes her way it makes 1,000 accordions start to play.
In fact, so besotted is Nielsen by the French capital that she just has to buy her own small patch of it. With a sizeable bequest from her mother-in-law, a compliant husband, and on vacation from Australia, she has only two weeks to pound the cobbles and tramp the teeming boulevards in search of her dream Parisian pad.
Alors! So what does she want? Tall French windows, geranium smothered balconies, parquet floors, marble fireplaces, blue shutters and leafy vistas with glimpses of the sparkling Seine.
As for the word 'Paris', well, hey, when it comes her way it makes 1,000 accordions start to play.
In fact, so besotted is Nielsen by the French capital that she just has to buy her own small patch of it. With a sizeable bequest from her mother-in-law, a compliant husband, and on vacation from Australia, she has only two weeks to pound the cobbles and tramp the teeming boulevards in search of her dream Parisian pad.
Alors! So what does she want? Tall French windows, geranium smothered balconies, parquet floors, marble fireplaces, blue shutters and leafy vistas with glimpses of the sparkling Seine.
Thursday, July 3, 2008
France's housing hiccups
France never really bought into the US-style property frenzy with the same zeal as Britain. The French have generally shunned variable-rate mortgages, with their element of unpredictability, and home-lending practices have toed a more conventional line.
Nonetheless, a tide may be turning in France, where existing home prices fell 0.8% in the first quarter of this year - after rising just under half a percent in the previous quarter. In Paris itself, prices were still up 1.1% in the first three months, but that marked a slowdown from the 2% increase in the year-earlier period. And elsewhere in the Greater Paris region known as Ile de France, home prices declined, falling 1% in the Val d’Oise, north of the capital.
But the real shock stats are to be seen in housing sales. Year-on-year sales of all homes plummeted some 17% in May in France. In Ile de France, sales tumbled some 21%.
Nonetheless, a tide may be turning in France, where existing home prices fell 0.8% in the first quarter of this year - after rising just under half a percent in the previous quarter. In Paris itself, prices were still up 1.1% in the first three months, but that marked a slowdown from the 2% increase in the year-earlier period. And elsewhere in the Greater Paris region known as Ile de France, home prices declined, falling 1% in the Val d’Oise, north of the capital.
But the real shock stats are to be seen in housing sales. Year-on-year sales of all homes plummeted some 17% in May in France. In Ile de France, sales tumbled some 21%.
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