In little over a week’s time, La Croisette, in the heart of Cannes, will be packed full of dark-suited, sunglasses-wearing property professionals discussing the nuances of housing policy, buyers’ expectations and the ins and outs of investment portfolios.
Some of the delegates to the annual international property conference, known by its acronym MIPIM, will also attend a reception hosted by the French conglomerate Eiffage, which claims a heritage that includes the Eiffel Tower, Sydney Opera House and the Channel Tunnel.
Eiffage has an established presence in Cannes — it recently completed the renovation of the Palais des Festivals conference centre where MIPIM is held, having previously renovated the famous belle époque InterContinental Carlton and Le Majestic hotels and built the Cannes railway station. It was also responsible for the distinctively modern luxury apartments at 7 Croisette. Apartments sell for €35,000 (£27,247) per sq metre and the largest penthouse was recently sold for €5 million (£3.89 million). The company’s next venture, in the hills of le Californie, a district to the northeast of the centre, will be “super prime”. Eden Cannes will be a small gated development of 15 apartments set in landscaped gardens with broad terraces overlooking the Mediterranean to the Cap d’Antibes.
The sharp-suited professionals will no doubt pace out the plot, consider the view and discuss who will live in the bespoke apartments, which are selling off-plan for between €3.4 million and €7 million. Bets will be on wealthy British, Belgian, Swiss and Middle Eastern buyers.
Mark Harvey, the head of residental sales for Knight Frank in France, says property prices in Cannes have fallen by 2.7 per cent in the past year, but despite the exchange rate not being quite as enticing a prospect as it once was, the British are still coming to Cannes. Wealthy British holidaymakers have been coming since Lord Henry Brougham built his villa here in the 1830s.
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Enthusiasm has been dented by the recession, fluctuating currency rates and, now, the prospect of Brexit, but many continue to be attracted by Cannes’ reputation for putting on the glitz.
The Saudi royal family has villas here, Madonna rents every year, Estée Lauder’s former home is for sale (for €8.35 million through Knight Frank), with rumours that a Berlusconi family member will be selling a villa this year. “Is it glamorous? Are you kidding me? It’s non-stop action — restaurants, shopping and glamour. Cannes definitely has style. We French have a saying: ‘Nice est belle , mais Cannes est la coquette’ [Nice is nice but Cannes is coquettish],” says Olivier Morvan, a sales manager with Knight Frank. Nonetheless, the recession hit here too. Harvey says that property prices and transactions are 35 per cent down on their peak, although with French banks offering “ridiculously low” mortgage rates of less than 2 per cent, many still consider it a good time to buy. In France it makes sense for even wealthy cash buyers to borrow money to minimise their exposure to wealth tax.
Most sought-after are apartments in the central area known as La Banane — the banana-shaped segment around the main shopping street of Rue d’Antibes and the beachfront Boulevard de la Croisette — and villas and apartments higher up in the residential districts of La Californie and Super Cannes. Also popular with British buyers are the neighbourhoods of Le Cannet and Oxford.
Alex Balkin, the head of Savills, in the French Riveria, says: “Cannes has had a pull on foreign buyers for the past 150 years and it is not slowing down. The wealthy are getting younger though, and they want to be closer to the beach and quality shopping, and are less likely to want to be away from the action. The good stuff in the right location commands a high price.”
It also commands stellar rental incomes. The key rental periods are during MIPIM, the town’s biggest conference, which attracts 21,000 delegates, and the Cannes Film Festival in May, which attracts 150,000 visitors, including a host of stars willing to pay top prices to rent as close as possible to the Palais des Festivals — a large penthouse with a pool, opposite the conference centre, was reportedly let for €200,000 for the ten days of the festival last year. In La Californie, a fully staffed, six-bedroom, luxury villa might command half that.
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Harvey says: “It is an investment story in the centre. Post credit crunch, there is more awareness. I don’t know anyone who doesn’t rent their property out when they are not here. It is a big change in the mentality of the buyers. Budgets are also a little more restrained, with many following the prices down — where they once looked at spending €5 million they are now spending up to €3 million.”
For those with the money, there are some unusual high-end properties on the market. In the centre of Cannes, a vintage car showroom, Le Garage, has been converted into a spacious apartment by the artist and interior designer Jean-Loup Daraux. Le Belvedere, a sleek modern apartment in Le Cannet owned by the architect Philippe Bonino, is for sale for €2.5 million, and La Petite Perle, a renovated fisherman’s house on the Golfe-Juan side of town, is €2.625 million, through Knight Frank.
The suited and booted guests at the Eden Cannes reception are more likely to be staying behind the development site in one of the classic Seventies-style apartment blocks of Saint-Michel Colline and Saint-Michael Valletta. Properties are more affordable, at about €1.2 million for a spacious three-bedroom flat with sea views, 24-hour concierge and pool, the same as would be paid for a two-bedroom flat near the Croissette.