PL24 – 17th May 2003.

Property Letter No. 24

Santa Cruz – Palm Beach.
Asking Price – 132 000€.
One bedroom flat on 4th floor of a 5 floor building.
37 sq.m. with a 8 sq.m. terrace.

I would like to get this one out fast.

We bought a studio in Santa Cruz a few weeks ago. It’s a very good building – well maintained with everything one would want like gardienne, interphone, lifts etc. The building was constructed in 1970.
Technically it’s in Palm Beach, but is in fact closer to the centre of Cannes than the majority of the flats we have in P.B. It’s on the closer and broader part of the Peninsula.

PL23b – 3rd May 2003.

A short postscript to my letter of the 1st.

On Finance.
I met yesterday with the lending bank we deal with, and we are now establishing a track record, and hopefully deriving some advantage from that.

Without any guarantee of success yet, we are trying to get a 60% mortgage for our most recent Zim. Investor, and are likely to be successful.

I stress no guarantee but it seems probable that we will be able to achieve 80% for Europeans, 70% for S. Africans, and 60% for Zimbabweans if we put our minds to it. Your classification has nothing to do with the passport you carry – it is deemed that you are of the country from which your income is derived.
The renovations that are required on any property you are interested in can be similarly financed, as part of the main loan application providing I submit the quotes for renovation with the original application. If they are submitted separately they have to exceed 20 000 Euros in order to be considered.

PL23 – 1st May 2003.

Dear All,

I have been back in Cannes about 10 days now, and look forward to Vicky joining me nest week.

As usual I have not stopped since arrival, but the good news is that it’s all very positive news from here.

The war is all but over in Iraq, and there is no doubt that it affected business down here very negatively. Everyone felt it. Business is picking up again with bookings flowing in for our apartments now, although still at lower levels than is normal for this time of year. We are now fully booked for the Film Festival in a couple of weeks time (which we jolly well should be) and are filling up for the Ad. Festival which follows hot on its heels. Summer holiday bookings are starting, and industry experts believe that it is going to be a busy summer, although people are confirming slowly and late. The belief is that there will be a lack of Americans this year, but compensated for by the Europeans who will not be travelling by the jumbo jet loads to Indonesia and Bali, Thailand, Vietnam and all the other Asian and even Australian destinations.