Property Letter No. 13 - PL13 � 29th July 2002

Dear All,

I wrote this letter yesterday and completely lost it trying to copy it from Word to Outlook! Now I have to try to remember what I said. I wrote to most of you in April in my Property Letter No 1 telling you of our plans to travel to France, Spain and Portugal to look into the possibility of investment property as an alternative to a rather uninspiring stock market, which since then has gone even more pear shaped.

I continued to send information on our progress only to those of you who replied or expressed an interest, not wanting to be the sender of unwanted mail. Some of you were interested in investing, and some just in being included in the information loop for the time being.

Property Letter No 12 � 17th July 2002

Dear All,

I copy below what I wrote about No 57 Residence de Bosquet in Property letter No 10.
It is still available, and in my opinion a very good buy at 88500 EUROS. One could offer 83000 and see if we get it. Is anyone interested?

What is excellent is that in the last few days the apartment Vicky and I had to give up in Palais Alexandre III has been bought by one of us, as has La Brise. There is also the possibility of 42 Rue Droite in Nice, to be confirmed. That will bring our number of participating families up to 7, with 9 apartments. I think that gives us strength, and a really good start for Steve and Avril in October.

Yours,

Guy

The studio No.57 at Residence de Bosquet, in Ave. General Vautrin

We saw this apartment just before we left Cannes, and it’s very good in our opinion. I phoned this morning and it is still available. It is inexpensive and very well situated in the centre of Cannes, just behind the 5 Star Hotel Martinez. It is a short walk to anywhere one needs to go in Cannes, shopping, conferencing, etc., and one block from the beach. The whole of the Italian and French Riviera has a railway line running along the sea shore, built there because in those days it was (and still is) easier and cheaper to build a railway line along the flat. In some places it’s literally on the beach, such as in places along the coast from Muizenberg through Cork Bay and Fishoek to Simonstown. In other places it’s a bit set back. Through much of Cannes it’s about 100m from the beach, and that strip between it and the beach is the expensive Croisette with all the big Hotels. One crosses below the railway line at various points, and Ave. Gen. Vautrin runs along it. On the other side of the road are blocks of flats, and Vicky and I have bought the double studio in exactly the same situation 100m from this Residence de Bosquet. We would love to buy this one too, but we can’t. It does not overlook the street or the railway line, but looks out over gardens and other buildings in the opposite direction. Very attractive outlook, and the flat itself will be lovely with a few thousand Euros spent on it – a new kitchen and a fresh coat of paint have been budgeted for in the analysis.

PL11 – Property Letter 11 – 15th July 2002.

Dear All,

There have been developments this week with regard to the Bank (Entenial). They originally said that the max mortgage allowable to E.U. clients is 70%, or a 30% deposit. I attempted to negotiate it down to a 25% deposit in the belief that it might be useful to some of us (certainly to me). It looked as if all was well and that we would be accepted as E.U. borrowers because of the source of funds being mostly UK bank accounts. They made it clear all along that it was just an application that would go forward to head office in Marseilles with their recommendation, but that the decision would be made there.