Buying a Piece of Paris

Cute and fun read about the travails of the Paris real estate market for the author, an expat from Australia.

I love Paris. It is a truly remarkable city, so I understand the author's fixation with owning a piece real estate in the City of Light. She comes face to face with the patronizing nature of French Real estate agencies who only show her apartments no fashionable French person would set foot in, let alone purchase, subjected to inpromptu french lessons from everyone she comes in contact with from waiters to florists and, finally pushy 'won't take no for an answer' realtors. Imagine that, wanting to see an apartment before making an offer?? You get a superficial look at several neighborhoods (or arrondisements) in Paris, lots of french language lessons and restaurant and shopping suggestions of where the natives go, or don't go, to pick up groceries, furniture and a good cup of coffee. Its a fun read that allows you to live vicariously through the author and still keep over $400K (euro) in your genuine Chanel, Prada or Gucci bag.

Ellie Nielsen is obsessed with having an apartment in Paris. Her love affair with the city goes way beyond the feelings most of us have for this beautiful city. She *must* own a place there...and to her delight her husband agrees. Ellie and her husband Jack have given themselves 2 weeks to find the "perfect" apartment. They have some interesting encounters with real estate agents, but they are not totally doing it on their own. They are very lucky in that they have friends in Paris who have friends who know people who can help them. The narrative wanders off into reminisces about previous visits and little vignettes relating to Ellery (Ellie and Jack's 5 year old son), and there is a lovely section about Ellie's loved mother-in-law whose legacy makes this all possible. Of course, there is a happy ending! This is a nice gentle story; the sort of book to read when you want to have a little dream of owning your own perfect apartment in Paris.

Jack Nielsen tells his wife Ellie while they are driving in Melbourne, they should buy an apartment in Paris. She and their accountant agree for differing reasons. She because she loves the city while the accountant says it makes sense financially. Back in Paris Ellie begins the search for an apartment they can afford that has the special French unique feel and would comfortably be showcased in a magazine. Blaming the butcher, she entered her first realtor office only to be met with culture shock from the onset; as the number of rooms is irrelevant, but the number of meters is everything. Other stunners also occur as Ellie obtains a taste of the unique Parisian real estate market. Like much of the audience outside of Paris, Elle finds a part of the city that she never knew existed until she began the search. Filled with homage for the French capital, readers who enjoy a lighthearted well written memoir will want to read Ellie Neilson's melodious tour of apartment hunting in Paris. Harriet Klausner

No wonder the Parisians think most foreigners are slightly insane... This lighthearted and somewhat lightweight book is the chronicle of the author's adventures in quest of an apartment in Paris to call her own. Ellie Nielsen adores Paris, but blames her real estate obsession on her glimpses of the local butcher from the windows of the first Parisian apartment she ever occupied. "It was so elegant, so classical, so unlike a place that just sold... flesh," she marvels, imagining herself consulting with the butcher on which cut of rabbit meat to serve or whether to pick up some andouille sausage. Alas, she realizes, her dream is out of reach. "This meat required experience. French experience. It was experience that excluded me." Already struggling with the language and with how to dress to look more Parisienne and less Australienne, Ellie decides to add one more item to her list: a struggle to purchase an apartment in Paris. We never really learn why a Parisian apartment is needed or desireable (which is deeply irritating by the end of the book) as she and her husband live in Melbourne with their six-year-old son. And the quest itself, while amusing enough, risks toppling over the edge and into parody as she and a seemingly endless series of caricature-like real estate agents parade through an equally-endless series of apartments. (One of these is shaped like a wedge of cheese; another boasts black walls and a display of thousands of tiny objets d'art.) Anyone who finds Peter Mayles's Provencal sagas even mildly irritating shouldn't bother picking this up; someone looking for a book that delves far more deeply and thoughtfully into the relationships between the French (especially the Parisians) and the expatriates who fall in love with Paris couldn't do better than read Sarah Turnbull's memoir, Almost French: Love and a New Life in Paris. (If you're interested in fictional encounters and mutual incomprehension entre les Parisiens et `les autres', try Diane Johnson's Le Mariage or Le Divorce (William Abrahams Book).) Still, it's a lively and often amusing saga of one woman's adventures in real estate that will probably appeal to readers who themselves dream of one day packing up and moving to Paris - or Rome, or Marrakech or any other city of dreams.