16th May 2008

French Property

Living in France

Holidays in France

Regions of France

Directories

Forum

Currency Exchange for Buying French Property

Welcome to the FrenchEntrée Currency Information for Buying French Property zone.

In this section we will aim to provide you with all the information that you will need to help you buy your new property in France.

Euro Buyers Currency Exchange FAQ

We try to answer all your questions here...

You are here: FrenchEntrée > French Property > Euro Currency Exchange

Currency for French Property

Buy Euros on a Regular Payment Plan

For all your regular overseas payments.

The Regular Payment Plan removes the worry caused by exchange rate fluctuations when making regular foreign currency payments over a period of time. This Moneycorp facility was launched last year, and has already proved extremely popular...more...

Living in France with a falling pound – what to do

Denise Blackburn, private client marketing manager at money specialists Moneycorp, discusses what to do as sterling continues to struggle against the euro more...

Will the pound recover against the euro for French property buyers?

Sterling has slumped to a low level against the euro, hitting Britons looking to buy homes in France. Michael Streeter asks the experts what caused the fall, whether it’s likely to recover in the near future - and how best to cope with it.more...

Save Thousands on Foreign Exchange

People moving large sums abroad can avoid the banks’ high rates by using a specialist broker, writes Clare Francis.more...

The currency issues for buying new build or off-plan

Buying a new house in France, either your own new build design or an “off-plan” apartment or villa in a development is an increasingly popular option. But how do you avoid risking your capital on currency fluctuations...more...

Case study - Money and buying in France

Alan and Diana Woodhead from Huddersfield, West Yorkshire, have bought a holiday home in Normandy. Here they describe how they found the process of buying a property in France - and getting a mortgage. more...

Case study - Money and moving to France

Justin Woods and his wife Andrea have decided to move to near Moulins in the Auvergne to find a ‘better way of life’ for their children. Here Justin describes the difference in the cost of living – and how he transferred money to pay for the move.more...

Proper planning for your currency purchase

Some inside knowledge about buying "forward"

Beware of the butterfly.
In the 1960s Edward Lorenz was trying to model the weather on his computer. He discovered that, from the same equation, the result would differ wildly if the starting point was different by just one digit at the twentieth decimal place. From this discovery of small input differences giving massively different results came the concept of the “butterfly effect”. The idea is that the...more...

Buying development property in France

The currency issues for buying new build or off-plan

Euro currency exchange on French property

How to avoid currency fluctuations

Most people buying a French holiday home or a permanent residence in France would prefer to live without the sleepless nights associated with fluctuating currency exchange. It’s no fun agreeing...more...

Sponsored by

Free Currency Update Newsletter

Do you want to keep up to date with the latest currency news? FrenchEntrée offers a free newsletter with information on when is the best time to make your currency exchanges. Learn More

Latest Euro Currency Report

Euro Currency Update - May 14th 2008 - EU rates on hold

Last week’s central banks meeting results drew an unsurprising double “no change” result with both the ECB and MPC keeping rates at 4 and 5 percent. ECB president Jean Claude Trichet stuck to his recent inflation-anxious rhetoric despite mounting concerns of trouble afoot in the south with Spain in particular suffering from the pain of the one size fits all ECB policy (more of which later).

The ECB will be feeling the pressure to cut rates with a mixed picture on growth beginning to muddy the waters. At this stage in the cycle the decision making process for the committee members will be far from easy. Whilst German continues to enjoy strong industrial output (up 4.7% year on year in March) and export growth of €252.7 bn for the first quarter, the picture in Spain demonstrates limitations in the scope of the ECB’s use of monetary policy to stimulate growth throughout the Euro region.

The figures for Spain show a very different picture to that in Germany. Whilst the German economy expanded by 2.5% in 2007, figures from the bank of Spain show just a quarterly increase of 0.3% in the first quarter of this year. Pointing to a year on year rate of growth of around 1.5% down considerably from last year’s figures. The roots of this change in fortune lie in Spain’s rapidly contracting housing market. Inventories of unsold new units remain worryingly high despite price revisions. Spain’s economy has an unusually high correlation to its housing market with housing related activity accounting for almost 20% of output. As a result a housing slowdown has sent tremors through the labour market and large cracks have appeared in the Spanish retail sales and GDP data.

Hot on the heels of Spain is Ireland with its similarly frothy housing market seeing price markdowns. Greece, Finland and even France have shown strong increases in asset prices in the last few years with increasing levels of personal debt which point to mounting risks that we will see a downward move in growth in those countries too. Despite these risks Germany appears to be leading the Euro area forward with productivity gains and personal consumption growth all likely to push German and in turn European GDP higher.

First quarter estimates for the Euro zone GDP are out this week and are expected to be higher than those of Q4 2007 at 0.5% vs 0.4%. Although the strength of the Euro will continue to place obvious strains on export growth. All of which shows the importance of Germany’s role in driving the Euro area forward.

So what to do?

The Euro is still winning the war against both Pound and Dollar with interest rate cuts from both London and Washington and no sign of a dove majority in Brussels yet. Having risen to over $1.60 against the Greenback and almost 81p against Sterling the Euro should still stay strong. Recovery from the States could force the Euro dollar rate back down, but with a weak housing market in the UK and an absence of credit crunch related horror stories from Europe (for now) a strong Euro against the pound is likely to remain.

To open a Moneycorp currency trading account please visit the currency Enquiry Form.

Free Content

Search FrenchEntrée

French Property Database Search

Over 7000 properties
for sale throughout France..... More search options

French Property Products & Services

Search over one thousand suppliers to the French property market...

Text Search:

Category:

Click here to add an "entry"

FrenchEntrée.com is the complete guide to French property, Living in France , Holidays in France , Property for sale in France and France rentals .
The contents of this site are copyright of FrenchEntrée.com and its licensees 2003 - 2008.
This site is powered by PortalConstructor