Hi all, some time since I posted on this site. Sorry it didn't work out for the originator of this thread but hang on in there Ian.

After a last minute hiccup (UBS getting cold feet over the delay in permits coming through) we completed on our place at the end of Feb and had an excellent couple of weeks in Nendaz - albeit coinciding with an almighty dump of snow which led to nearly all the lifts being closed just as we finally finished assembling furniture. But a nice feeling to think it didn't matter as we can skiing whenever we want.

Couple of things to report:

Apparently the commune of Nendaz voted recently to increase the promotional budget for tourists something like four-fold. (However haven't been able to verify that looking through the postings on the commune's website).

Also anyone looking for chalet management services check out Jay and Stephanie of Mira Lodge. They run a really nice b&b in Sornard, just on the way in to Nendaz and have also started a chalet management service for those who aren't lucky enough to live there all the time. We've put ours on with interhome for this first year and will use Mira for our private and family bookings - hopefully in teh future we can just rely on private bookings once we've got a better sense of how its all working.

We are also having a chalet built by Dumas in Veysonnaz so it good hear good news from ChrisG, any other tips about Dumas would be appreciated.

We need to start think about furniture in the next couple of months so if anyone knows of any quality stores down in the valley I would be grateful.

Tax has loss me on a chalet in Veysonnaz; know one seems to know not even people who own a property!!!! We wait and see.

CJE: We actually had stuff made-to-measure locally in the UK, and then took it down. This might not be sensible for things like beds etc., but it meant that sideboards etc. fit exactly and have just what's needed. We have an estate car, so perhaps this is more feasible for us, but it didn't cost any more than good-quality local stuff. Remember also, that if you're ever going to rent or let others use the place, you have to compromise a bit on the design/materials, in the expectation of more wear-and-tear than if only you use it.

Didn't quite understand the tax question at the end of your post?

Hi Nendette,

Glad to hear it all went through ok and your now settled in. The recent dumps over the past few weeks looks like it will extend the season this year. This does mean however anyone waiting for the construction on their apartments and chalets to start maybe waiting just a tad longer.

Sounds very good that the Commune has increased its budget for attracting tourists. This will certainly boost the area's potential for the rental market. The Manager of Interhome has said that before the recession in Switzerland properties used to rent out for as many as 40 weeks of the year. The fact that they are now over the recession and the tourist push should get an even greater influx!

See you on the slopes next year when ours is ready!

Hi CJE,

If you read through the posts on this thread it should give you all the info you want re Taxes. Any questions post on here and there are a few of us that can help.

Thanks for the reply on the furniture I was actually thinking of taking out a carpenter from the UK to build the wardrobes. I still need to buy beds, chairs, sofa etc. Does any one know where to buy these items locally or is it worth bringing them out from the UK.

My question reference tax is what relief you get against any Canton, National or Commune Tax if you have a mortgage.

CJE: We've bought odd bits and pieces from the out-of-town places in Sierre and Sion. Stuff like the balcony furniture was actually cheaper and it was sort of fun to be buying stuff alongside 'ordinary' Swiss people. Personally - just my view - I think that we should spend locally rather than bring someone out from the UK.

There are quite a few local carpentry business and if it was me, I think that I'd start the process of integrating locally by talking to some of them. Or if your French isn't up to it, perhaps the people building your chalet could line someone they trust up to to provide what you want?

Re. tax - when completing your UK tax return you have to declare rental income, but what's good is that you're allowed to offset all your expenses for the period that you're not resident. So if your were resident 15 weeks in the year, and your expenses were 10,000 CHF/year you could offset (10,000/52)*37 against all expenses, including any Swiss taxes, electricity, agency fees, etc. For us, this basically means that we aren't taxed on the modest 6-10 weeks of income from winter lettings.

However, you do need to check all this with a UK Tax Accountant - our situation may be different to yours.

Thanks TopperT. Interestingly I was told that the new promotional budget is going to be particularly targetted at Brits - so watch this space, I guess.

re furniture: well we got nearly all of ours at ikea in Aubonne, and opposite there is a big shopping centre with another furniture store called TOPTIP. Its all the same experience as you probaly know and love from home, prices are a bit lower though (not sure if thats becuase of VAT being lower or if its another example of rip-off britain). There's also a Conforama just outside Sion if you can't face ikea, which is a swiss furniture chain (it might even be french, not sure). Sion seems to have quite a few smaller shops for the catering trade so you could probably pick up some nice stuff there. We were a bit short on time otherwise I'd have preferred to shop around locally rather than do the identikit ikea thing. One thing we did get in the UK was sofas which we got in the sales in January and the shop amazingly enough threw in delivery to Nendaz into the bargain. So, give Highly Sprung a go!

Unless you have a particular reason for bringing a carpenter from the UK with you I'd go local too - just ask around in the immo agencies and have a look on Nendaz local (not tourist) website for listings. From my limited experience so far getting work done in Switzerland has been much cheaper and the work has been v high quality.

my family and I are thinking seriously about buying in Leukerbad. I hear alot of traffic about Nendaz on this site but not alot about Leukerbad. Could anyone give me some pointers on the developers 5 year guaranteed rental schemes? we will only usde the place for about 8 weeks of the year and would like peace of mind that the apartment will be taken care of!!

Haute Nendaz because its linked into the 4 Valleys access to Verbier means its becoming a hot place to invest and thats why there's a lot of traffic. Price of land as a result is up up up!

I have stong feelings about guaranteed rental. We were offered it when we were looking to buy last year but was advised what it involved and were annoyed by it.

Personally wouldnt touch it unless they could absolutely guarantee they have not put your price of the property up and giving you some of your own money back while the place remains empty. Its an old trick that doesn't just go on in Switzerland!

Hi Nendette,

Thats great news!Lets hope that budget continues to grow!

Could, any of you who bought a chalet, quantify the expenses to keep it in good shape?
(i.e. roof, wood, ...)

Blueellerslie:

Lukerbad is German-speaking and Nendaz*, Veysonnaz*, La Tzoumaz*, Villars, Verbier*, Champery, Leysin, Ovronnaz etc are in the French-speaking area. In our case, we speak at least some French but no German, so didn't want to cross the border into the German area. I suspect this is a factor for at least some other people too.

Second, as TopperT pointed out, the Quatre Valees resorts (*above) give you access to about 450Kms of skiing. Summer isn't so much of an issue, but the 50Kms (or less) of the smaller resorts like Ovronnaz, Chandolin, or even Crans would meand that after a couple of seasons, you're probably getting bored with the limited options. This is also reflected in rental opportunities.

tretre: One comment made to us by all the Immobiliers was that we needed to budget around £10-£12,000 for external refurbishment to a chalet. Not a big issue with a new one, but second-hand it could be a big expense. Typically, you start thinking about this after 7-10 years, apparently. I don't know if there's a statutory requirement to refurbish in any of the resorts.

The best people to ask would be the immobiliers, probably, in terms of this issue and general maintenance budget.

And on the subject of 'guaranteed rental' - I simply don't see that this can be anything other than a con. Ask an honest immobilier about rentals and they'll usually say that you simply can't be sure - this has apparently been a great year for business generally (the best since 1976 one of the sports shops told me) but poor snow in December or a warm snap in February will put-off the mainland Europeans who can and do book late. They don't have to agonise about flights, ferries, tunnel etc. so they can just wait until December to decide. Our agency doesn't even open bookings until mend-September, on the basis that there's not a lot of interest before then.

Thanks for the advice re furniture: we will take visit to Aubonne next time we go Veysonnaz.Not sure when that will be, trying to find out the progress (if any)on our chalet. Last time we visited end of January work had stopped.We hope work has resumed now the weather has started to get warmer.Its allways a problem when you are in the UK trying to keep upto date with progress.

Not sure I got the weather bit right, just look at the webcame and its snowing in Verbier tonight.

I understand the concept of "Buy to let" being a mortgage broker myself. The developer of the edelweiss devpmt in Leukerbad offers a guaranteed rental income for the 1st 5 years. This is designed to cover outgoings such as mortgage interest, variable and fixed costs, but not mortgage capital repayments. In return they want 20 weeks in high season but will allow the property owner to book up to 4 of those weeks each year in advance. The remainder can be marketed by the owner and obviously given away to friends and family. In a conventional Buy to let situation the owner is relying on increase in capital value of the property not the income as a priority. In our case that is exactly they way we see it, except one gets to have a holiday at the same time. To think, I almost invested in a flat in Reading!!!
So long as the rental income washes the costs or better then I am not that bothered.But would welcome any comments from those who have taken the 5 year guarantee contract from a developer.

How about you just go to a few of the rental agencies in Lukerbad and see what they say? There may be something of a trade-off in terms of flexibility (although if you're working, there's a limit to how much time you can spend there, anyway). I know that Interhome do rental guarantees of some sort, so they may be worth asking.

It may be that someone like Interhome would give you a better rate/week. But there may be a trade-off, i.e. the more the net receipts to you per week of rental, the weaker the guarantee. Conversely, you may find that this arrangements effectvely leaves you with a very poor net income.

It's presumably the case that the rentals are being done through an agency anyway? So why not cut out the middle-man and go straight to the agency? The worrying thing then is that you must have agencies who presumably are giving preference to people on schemes such as yours, compared to individual owners. So I'd ask who it is who is handling the rentals for this scheme, and then deliberately NOT use them (or at least see what they would charge).

But I'm still sceptical about "20 weeks in the high season" .. is this winter alone, or winter+summer?

When we checked it out before buying, Interhome in Nendaz said you would expect to get a total of 18 weeks rental from them during both High / Low season for a 4*+ property in a good location and this is what we based our calculations on when buying. I'm thus with mse in that it seems incredibly high to offer 20 weeks guaranteed in just the high season.

Also I come back to the point I made in a previous post we were offered a guaranteed rental return but was informed by the person we bought from it was a con. Your paying yourself back with your own money while your apartment actually remains empty for the period. Any property we market is totally free of this trick as we were so appalled when we learnt of the way it works.

I'd suggest asking your developer/constructor who the company is they use and like mse said go see them yourself to check it out. That way it will put your mind at rest.

Thanks Topper T et al. I am looking at the brochure now and the 20 weeks they need are throughout the winter, the summer and christmas/new year; which is understandable. I am waiting to see what rental pa the guarantee actually is but oversees home search are getting back to me on Monday. The developer is Schnyder Bau unternehmung und Immobilieren AG who have been building in the region since 1948. Their optional scheme is for owners of apartments in the development to receive a fixed income for the first five years of ownership. It's designed to cover annual costs of ownership such as local taxes, service charges, mortgage interest payments etc. For someone who's biggest turnoff for buying property abroad is getting stuck with handling these messy things the guarantee, so long as it washes most of the annual costs sounds good to me. I fail to see how this can mean giving back money to you that you already have??? In addition the immob. allows you to book 4 weeks of the high season and replaces them with 4 weeks of your other 32. So shoot me down in flames guys....where is the catch. We shall surely find out after Easter as they have invited us out to stay in Leukerbad in one of the spare apartments they have.In any case I need the break!

I think that my and TopperT's point is that you need to be able to compare the developer's scheme item-by-item against the alternatives. One of which is to have the rentals and maintenance handled by one of the immobilier agencies, but without having to sign a long-term contract. You're still handing-over all the hassle to someone else.
I'm not saying that you're being swindled, just that on reflection, you might find that that it was not the most cost-effective option. In a way, all you're really doing is providing the developer with the capital to build the place. It may well suit you, but is this really what you initially wanted? You might feel that you want to retain control of the property and choice of rental agency and when you or your family can use it. Since there is obviously a reasonable rental market then I'd need convincing that any alternatives are, item-by-item, in terms of specific revenues and cost components, inferior.

Thank you for the feedback guys. I now have a spreadsheet with examples for a 2 bed property in Leukerbad. We are also booked to go out this month for a few days to check the place out. My mother is swiss and if she says its a nice place to go then I'll take her word for it. The website for leukerbad is very good and the property we have "reserved " has amazing specs. I can't believe how much space one gets for the money. Probably twice as much as in the four valleys. So a few days in the Valais, see a few properties, enjoy the place, picked up and dropped off at Cointrin by the agency plus the accomodation thrown in...it would be churlish to refuse the invitation! But it will become apparent if we are just wandering onto an off piste pipedream... now that would piste me off.

Just a couple of points: Firstly, you're right, despite prevailing opinions that Switzerland is expensive, the £/M2 cost and quality of construction is definitely better than France. (The exceptions, as always being Verbier and Zermatt.)

Secondly, do look at second-hand prices as well. I don't know, but all the prices that I see quoted by developers and agencies advertising in the UK seem inflated to me. So just make sure you have a new vs old comparison as well.

Dear All

I am living in Nendaz and thoroughly enjoying it. We are looking at properties at present but it is not the easiest thing in the world and I am glad I am actually here doing it, especially as we need residents permits etc.
During my search I cam accross a brochure for a new company who are setting up in the area and are looking for chalets to rent for the season that they can then rent out again. The web site is www.tedbentley.co.uk. Thought it may be useful if any of you want to rent out your chalets.

Good Luck

TAD

Hi Mattc

Found this new UK company setting up Catered Chalets in Nendaz - www.tedbentley.co.uk They may be looking for couples to run the chalets as it says in their brochure that they are catered.

Good Luck

TAD

quote:

Originally posted by TAD:
Hi Mattc
Well you sound like a family after our own hearts. We moved to Nendaz in Jan06 and so are now moving into month 3. The lifestyle here is fantastic and everyone is very friendly but word of warning you need to speak at least some French. We have a 9year old son who is at school here and loving it. We did some preparation before coming and got him a private tutor but the school have been fantastic, he loves it and they have spent alot of time working with him on the language. There are 12kids in his class great eh. All of the children have welco