J2Ski Forum Posts and Replies by msej449

Two things pushed me towards wearing one.

The first was accompanying my son off the piste in a body bag, down on the gondola, transfer to an ambulance, down the valley to a hospital, and waiting for a CAT scan. This after he'd had a very light fall onto ice at low speed and got concussion and then came 'round obviously confused. I'm convinced a helmet would have helped.

The other is hearing all the exact same arguments against in the days when mandatory seat belts were being debated. 'It's a marketing con'; 'It'll encourage people to be careless.'; 'I've driven for 40 years without needing one'; 'You'll still die in anything other than a minor accident,' etc.

Good points from @SwingBeep and some more, on reflection:

The consensus is that rentals won't normally repay the mortgage. Not unless you go full-on into renting every week you can and don't use it yourself, over a long period (in which case, it's probably not a very good property investment option) So, in order of desirability 1. You have the money to buy up-front, outright (lucky you), 2. You have the income to repay the mortgage without having to rent, or 3. (most common) you use rents to over on-going costs, refurbishments and maintenance and have the income to repay the mortgage, or 4. you can just about manage costs and repayments if you really go hard at maximising rents even if this severly limits your usage.

We got a mortgage no problem from UBS, but they did expect us to provide at least 20% equity (this was 2003, not sure how it is now). A few years later, we paid that off with a more attractive mortgage extension on our UK home at a better rate, when we had the equity to do this in our UK home.

Also, do a bit of Worst Case Scenario planning. What if you decided it really wasn't working out and for some reason wanted to sell up? These sort of properties can take some time to sell. And any profits would be liable to CGT, not only in the UK but probably locally too. In Switzerand, for example, different Cantons taper CGT differently, so for us, it tailed to zero but only after 5 years (this to deter property speculators).

Buying in CH is not the adversarial process it is in the UK - like France (I believe?) you use a single Notaire who acts independently for both parties. But like Scotland, the penalties for withdrawing a signed purchase contract are much more severe. We were glad we had all the deposit funding organised up-front as the process was fast (as I said 2½ hours from viewing to signature and key hand-over). The model of a separate buyer and seller solicitor is alien.

Also on the budgeting side, as well as (a) the £/m² budget and (b) the ongoing building budget, make sure you are realistic about (c) internal refurbishment and furnishings. If you are going to own an existing apartment for, say 10 years, then it's likely you'll replace the kitchen, or bathroom, or flooring. And probably some furniture as well. Refurbishment often needs specialists and these and their materials are going to be more expensive up a mountain.

Please don't let me put you off! Buying our Swiss apartment was one of the best decisions we ever made. It's given us loads of holidays and now we're approaching retirement, we're really looking forwards to spending more time there, winter and summer.

Any particular reason why it has to be France? I only ask because we did this a few years ago and slightly to our surprise, ended-up buying a 2-Bed apt. in Switzerland, in the French-speaking Valais. The £ is currently stronger against the CHF than it was and while CH has a reputation for being expensive in terms of £/m2 I don't think it is, relatively speaking, once you normalise the comparison.

In any event, one of the key metrics for evaluating what's on offer will be the £/m2 you can afford. So the starting point is a budget, basically, and some info on how it's all to be funded. This'll be the staring-point of any conversation with an immobilier as well.

Speaking of which, don't. I mean, don't randomly wander into an immobilier on your next ski trip. their job is to sell you what they have on their books, not advise you on options and strategy. We picked 3-4 potential places and went out on two Long Weekend trips in the low season first. Only on the second trip and second location did we walk into an estate agency. 2½ hours later we had the purchase contract signed and the keys in our hand.

So once you've got a budget and financing mechanism in mind, then there are some more questions to ask yourself: in no particular order -

Do you want to rent the place out or would you prefer not to?
Are you able to go out on a whim/short notice or are you limited by school holidays and/or work holidays?
Do you speak French or German (even a little)?
Have you considered the benefits of somewhere with good public transport links (i.e. don't have to rent a car).
How important is it to have underground parking?
Do you need good Broadband e.g. you could work there in the summer but only if links are good?
Do you have siblings or parents who might augment the cost and share ownership?
How near to the main télécabine/télésiege do you want to be? <300m? <200m?

Some random thoughts:

Realistically, apartment blocks need regular maintenance and refurbishment so you'll have both a basic annual maintenance fee and regular 'extraordinary' items. Make sure there's an established refurbishment fund being built up by the managing agents/co-proprietors. Out new boilers cost £40K. New garage doors £10K. Road resufacing £15K. The new roof will be at least £80K. This is for a block of 40 apartments, so we pay 1/40th but it adds up. It's a good idea to have an idea of how much you can afford in terms of these sorts of shared costs. And it affects your rental strategy - in our case, rentals cover all these annual costs and we wouldn't be there the main school holiday weeks anyway, so we rent.

If you're working, then realistically, you're limited by your holiday entitlement and related constraints. The point about siblings/parents is that between you, you may find that you can pool your funds to buy somewhere bigger/better and you wouldn't have any less usage than if you alone owned it.

Be careful about how you position this with relatives. it's surprising how often people assume they'll be able to use your place rent-free, even it it means you're losing a week's commercial rental. In which case, you basically subsidising their holiday. Have a clear policy up-front that relatives will pay the 'net' rate i.e. what you get after agency and cleaning fees are deducted. This way, everyone wins.

There's a lot to be said for being able to got to/from your place via public transport. Immobiliers often gloss over this, but for both clients and yourselves, not having to hire a car for shorter trips can be very useful. It also allows people to do overlapping arrivals/departures, which can be convenient.

How important are the low seasons and the summer? Increasingly, the summer season is as important as the winter. Some resorts are very lively in the summer, but others are completely dead. So do some research into the summer opening dates of the gondolas and lifts. The local Tourist Offices are a good source of information.

Proximity to the lift is a key factor in pricing. If you can walk to the main lift you pay a premium. This may not seem so important if you visit in the summer, but as you know, it makes life far easier if you're not reliant on a busy navette or having to get the car out, and can clomp your way, booted, form you basement boot room to the lift.

Some people are fixated by 'ski-in, ski-out' and will pay a big premium for the convenience. But in my experience a lot of SI-SO places may be great in the winter, but are miles away from the village amenities in the summer and low seasons. We're 5 minutes walk from the village centre and 8 mins clomp from the télécabine: we could have had a 3-bed apt or even a small chalet further away, or a SI-SO apt but that would have been a drive away, further up the mountain. Everyone who's used the place has said how good it is to be a short walk from shops, bars, cafés and the bus stop down to the valley.

Broadband and fibre cable are expensive up a mountain. Our £30/month package gets us a good cable collection, including BBC1,2,4,Cbeebies,World & ITV1-4 plus Netflix. But only 15-20Mbps. That's the Premium package - many places get very low Mbps. So worth checking what's available, especially as rental clients tend to expect reliable Broadband and Cable TV nowadays. And if you plan to work remotely then work out what the minimum acceptable Mbps will be.

There are loads of other things to discuss and prioritise but the above isn't a bad starter. You'll get loads more advice, I'm sure.

Avalanche Level 4 warning just gone out from MeteoSwiss for La Tzoumaz. Took this about an hour agon on way back from a snowshoe walk:

This morning in La Tzoumaz, 4 Vallées, CH saw the snow arrive earlier than forecast. Moderate when I went to get the morning croissants and bread around 8am:



but getting heavier now and forcast to last all day. Balcony temp is -7C

La Tzoumaz, 4 Vallées, Switzerland 1500m - 1st. thing this morning after the ovenight falls. I'd say about 8cm-10cm. Later in the day some more light snow, and windy. Savoleyres lifts to Verbier ran all day but this sector didn't open (v.foggy and winds later on). More light falls forecast tonight, and a heavy band of snow Sunday afternoon. Temp on balcony at 1500m currently -1.3C (16:25CET)

From the balcony.


And walking back after getting the morning croissants and bread.

ubermotz wrote:Yeah, anybody that had some good experience with using snow socks and if you did can you recommend some brands? Cheers!

If this is a hire car with winter tyres, then snow socks aren't as good as the Winters, so there'd be no point.

If you're driving your own car down to the Alps, then see a Guide I wrote at http://www.babybmw.net/howtos/Winter%20Wheels%20Guide%202%20Series%20v2.pdf - it's aimed a BMW 2 Series owners but most of it is generic. Basically, socks turn your UK Summer tyres into Winters (to a degree) but the main challenge is on mixed tarmac/slush/snow when they will shred if you're on tarmac for too long.

If you're thinking of socks as an alternative to chains then, yes, but they'll only partly cover what chains will do. And if the police determine it's 'chains only' conditions then the socks won't be acceptable.

Whether it's a hire car or your own, it's worth sorting out what traction control settings you'll need if you hit snow. On mine, the icon on the button I hit when I'm on snow isn't labelled with a snowflake (as you'd think) but a has a icon of a car with wriggly-lines and the text 'OFF' on it (WTF?).

You'll get lots of suggestions as there's a load of choice. Here's mine, but it's biased because I have an apartment in the Swiss Alps.

When in December? Christmas Week will be really busy, obviously. Earlier is very dependent on early season conditions and openings.

Travelling by train is a real option. You could go high and prestigious i.e. Zermatt (think Vail, cost-wise) Milan -> Brig -> Zermatt is 3h30m but up to an hour longer if less direct. Would be a great train ride.

See https://www.sbb.ch/en for an integrated timetable.

The official Swiss Tourist Office site at https://www.myswitzerland.com/en-gb/home.html often has special offers available. It'll also give you an idea of the various areas and resorts.

Zermatt is in the eastern end of the Valais region: see the map etc. on the myswitzerland.com site at https://www.myswitzerland.com/en-gb/destinations/regions/valais.html