The majority of people looking appear to be English although there are certainly a fair number of French and Italians. So, what are they looking for? In a number of cases people seem intent on opening a guest house and if this is so there will come a time when the market is saturated. There are still relatively few people looking to purchase simply to live in the Medina.
The number of people looking for a dar or riad in the Fez Medina continues to increase. At one time it was possible to keep track of the people looking and those who had already purchased a property. It was also possible to estimate the value of a house. Now that has all changed.
With all this activity, the prices have gone crazy and there are stories of people paying huge amounts for properties that are probably worth only half the price. Although it must be said that nobody now seems to have a clear idea of property prices. One leading real estate company is actually advising clients to look around a lot more and take their time because the market is so fluid.
Unfortunately with the boom has come a growing problem - that of finding workers and craftsmen who can restore a house in the traditional way and at reasonable prices. One buyer that we came across has spent more than a year struggling to get work done, only to be ripped off by contractors whose shoddy work than needs to be redone by the next. To date she has had three contractors and as one observer said - her house has been "raped".
Although time constraints often means that buyers need to leave renovation in the hands of others, too often the contractors over charge for poor work. From experience we can say that the most trouble free experiences are reported by those who assembled their own team of workers and had nothing to do with contractors.
Hopefully the newcomers will plug into the existing network of people with expertise in the area.
The chic couple (pictured above) who come from Marrakech, have been seen all over the Medina in the last few days and we suspect they are looking for a house. As one of our informants has commented, many people from Marrakech are now coming to Fez because of the better prices still available here. We wish them luck.
Tags: Moroccan Morocco Fes, Maghreb news
4 comments:
The people in the photo live in Marrakech...more and more people from there are coming to Fes to buy a house since there are better houses for much better prices.
As for prices, I was surprised to find this last weekend that there are still real bargains if the simsaar believes that you really want an inexpensive house. I saw some good houses for 7,000, 12,000 and 14,000 euros! And a friend of mine recently bought a lovely massreiya for 8,000 euros.
xekkdrlI assume from your comments you are local to the area.
Leaving the work on your dar or riad need not be a scary thing. We have a team being managed in Fez whilst I visit every month to six weeks to check on progress and discuss the next stage. The work is going well, at a fair price. I've have trusted the person in charge, in fact we seemed to have a mutual understanding the first time we met. There are undoubtedly unscrupulous individuals around who see every foreigner as a bag of Euros with legs, but not the case for all.
Is there a forum where we can discuss credentials and experiences with individual contractors? If not, I think it would be a fantastic idea. This way we could all learn from past mistakes with these shoddy contractors, and benefit from commendations of decent ones.
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