Buy-to-let 'good in French cities'

The major cities of France are proving fertile ground for buy to let, an expert has stated.

Founder and managing director of VEF Trisha Mason said such locations are among the best places in the country that people can invest, with an undersupply of apartments with good interior design for young professional couples.

She advised: "For any investor looking to upgrade properties I could highly recommend the route of acquiring one bedroom apartments in cities such as Lyon, Toulouse, Bordeaux and Montpellier and upgrading the interior."

Other good places to invest included off-plan leaseback products, which bring in returns of around five per cent per annum and can be bought from around EUR100,000 (GBP79,900), she stated.

France remains the most popular overseas buyer destination for Britons.

Figures from the Association of International Property Professionals showed that 25.4 per cent of overseas property purchases by UK buyers in 2007 were in France.