Archive for April, 2009

Chalet Toukbal in Samoens

Wednesday, April 22nd, 2009

Chalet Toukbal is back on the market. The previous offer has fallen through. The asking price is 400,000 euros, which for a 3 bedroom chalet with 1900m2 of land is very good going. Add to this the fact the owner will accept an offer and this will make it a bargain.

Full details for the chalet are on the website. Click the link for access!

www.alpine-property.com/index.php?page=prop_1_toubkal

Latest Market Report

Monday, April 20th, 2009

JC, has been quoted in Winkworth’s latest market report

“After a poor second half of 2008, French ski resorts are witnessing an unexpected
but welcome soft landing. In spite of negative economic reports, recent price falls
have spurred buying interest in previously unaffordable ‘niche’ areas. This is
particularly evident in prime locations within famous destinations such as
Chamonix,Megève,Morzine and Samoëns. France has not suffered from a credit
crunch and interest rates are still falling,which in turn ought to be reflected in
healthier demand as we progress further into 2009.”

The full report is available here.

A milestone for Alpine Property

Monday, April 20th, 2009

Alpine Property is approaching its 10th anniversary, but before we reach this milestone we have recently achieved another. Last week is the first time we have had 200 properties available for sale on our website. In fact by Friday we’ll be on 206.

I know 200 doesn’t sound like a lot of properties for a web based agent. It is when you consider we operate like a traditional agent. We know each individual property and for each one we visit, take the photos and arrange a contract with the owner. We do not just “re-advertise” the properties for other agents.

It sounds like a lot to me. The reason for this is that Jo and I prepare the information and pictures and put each one on line. We have worked out how long (on average) each property takes to upload. Assuming we have to create a plan for the property (a lengthy task) then the whole process takes about 5 hrs.

So it made me wonder. How many properties have we put online in total? This is fairly hard to work out before 2002. And very easy to work out since 2002 (the year we went from a “static” HTML website to a “dynamic” database driven website). Since 2002 we have advertised 716 properties.

Thanks to Alexa’s “way back machine“, we can track how many properties where online on any given month since we went online. Here is the history for Alpine Property.

http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.alpine-property.com

This is also an interesting place to browse if you want to see what a property might have been worth 10 years ago!

So here is the data for number of properties visible on the website (so it includes properties “under offer”). I’ve also added initials by the year each team member joined.

Spring 2000 - www.alpine-property.com goes online with 15 properties SN/CB which overed St Jean d’Aulps, Morzine, Les Gets and the Chatel Valley - AKA The Portes du Soleil

Spring 2001 - 24 properties GJ/JN

Spring 2002 - 28 properties - website mk 2

Spring 2003 - 32 properties

Spring 2004 - 37 properties JD helping GJ

Spring 2005 - 109 properties - website mk 3 DB/JC, adding Samoens, Chamonix, Megeve

Spring 2006 - 110 properties VM, helping DB

Spring 2007 - 112 properties LM, helping CB

Spring 2008 - 160 properties - website mk 3.5 EC/RO, adding Les Carroz, La Clusaz and Le Grand-Bornand

Spring 2009 - 220 properties

The initials stand for

  1. SN = Steve Norris
  2. CB = Claudia Buttet
  3. GJ = Gareth Jefferies
  4. JN = James Norris
  5. JD = Jo Davison
  6. DB = Denis Barbier
  7. JC = JC Skiera
  8. VL = Valérie Maes
  9. LM = Lee Massey
  10. EC = Emma Casanova
  11. RO = Richard Owens