Some People Just Don't Get It

We got a PR email into the website earlier today that just beggars belief. We won't mention the PR company or the agent involved to avoid embarrassment, but we will give you a few snippets to show just how far removed from reality some of the crap we receive actually is.

Excerpt I, slightly edited:

"While the Celtic Tiger was this week declared dead by the Economic and Social Research Institute, its claw marks are still being felt in the south of France where Irish property investors now have a greater presence than their British counterparts," stated Walter Mitty of WeSellGazillionsOfProperties.com.

Wally went on to explain: "the predicted bursting of the Irish housing propertybubble, combined with rising inflation and the international credit crisis, does not appear to be deterring Irish investors from taking advantage of the development opportunities along the French Mediterranean coast."

Well that's news to other agents selling French property in Ireland. 2008 has been the worst year for sales since the famine for everyone else so we'd really like to know what Wally is up to that no-one else is.

Excerpt II - unedited:

"The fall in house prices in Ireland for the 15th month in a row in May, bringing the total decline versus a year earlier to 9.5 percent, is certainly helping to sustain the numbers of Irish people seeking sound investment opportunities abroad."

Really? Can't argue with the first part, the second part looks like a bit of a crock though.

Excerpt III - again unedited:

"In France, for example, the value of second hand properties increased by 2.7% in the first quarter of 2008. As a result, we are seeing a lot of foreign developers, predominantly Irish, continuing to invest in properties here."

Again, can't argue with the first part, but the second part is from Never Never Land.

It goes on, I won't bore you with the specifics, you've got the gist of it at this stage. The only problem with this type of rubbish is that some paper will probably pick up on it and use it to fill a column somewhere and some poor gullible sod reading that paper will actually think there's a rush of Irish buyers to Southern France, whereas in reality, that rush was finishing up two years ago.

Get real people, Southern France is suffering the same way everywhere else is, no matter how much you try to talk it up. There is, incidentally, no rush of Irish buyers anywhere at the moment, it looks very much like they all ran off a cliff or, more likely, they're all in bed scared out of their pants at the upcoming recession (which we are actually probably already in the middle of at the moment). They can't raise finance in the current climate in any case and until they can there will be no rush of Irish buyers anywhere.

Don't get me wrong, we're all for positivity and the whole "We've heard there's a recession but we've decided not to participate" attitude, but flogging complete and utter porky pies isn't the way forward. Let's be positive and honest, they don't have to be mutually exclusive you know.

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For a selection of property exhibitions featuring French property click here.