A Place In The Sun

Ean Vassort, dressed comfortably in jeans and blue cotton shirt, stands on the terrace of his whitewashed house, taking in the view of long golden beaches and a broad estuary snaking eastward into a hot, rocky valley. Retired since selling his restaurant near Avignon, France in 2002, Vassort, 74, now lives year-round in this sun-washed setting where he once took his

holidays. But unlike earlier generations of French pensioners, Vassort's retirement idyll isn't tucked away along the villa-studded expanses of the Côte d'Azur, or in one of the popular resort towns of Spain's Costa Brava. Instead, Vassort is one of a growing number of European pensioners jumping the Mediterranean to Morocco — and getting much more bang for their euro.

"We have a wonderful life in Morocco, so it's easy to understand why more French people are coming to live here," says Vassort, who lives with his wife and lumbering labrador Othello among the serpentine streets of les Oudayas, the ancient casbah of Morocco's capital, Rabat. "The Moroccans are friendly and astoundingly hospitable. The weather is good all year. There's a rich cultural and social life. And with virtually all Moroccans speaking French, language isn't a problem."

While most European societies are hotly debating what to do about the influx of immigrants from North Africa — tens of thousands make the trek to Europe every year, legally or not — a small but significant population is moving in the opposite direction. The generations of retirees who once flocked to Nice, St.-Tropez, or the Algarve are now exploring more exotic locales such as Thailand and Vietnam, and thereby extending Europe's reach beyond the acknowledged borders.

And, at least officially, places like Morocco are thrilled at the prospect. To encourage investment, the kingdom offers foreign pensioners a tremendous incentive to bunk down in Morocco at least half the year: 80% tax relief on money placed in Moroccan investments or bank accounts. Just how significant is that?

"The money we save on taxes pays for nearly an entire year of rent here," marvels Max Ferrero, 69, who operated a string of car dealerships in northern France before retiring in 2001. Sitting in the shade of his garden a mere 50 m from the Sid el Abed beach ("Sable d'Or" to the new locals) south of Rabat, Ferrero motioned to the 240-sq-m villa he and partner Cathy Conticello have lived in since last March. "We're not rich — we could never afford something like this in France," says Ferrero, who counts half a dozen fellow French expats, several local vips, a Moroccan general and King Mohammed VI's brother as neighbors. "The Côte d'Azur would be far beyond our means if we wanted a house there — which we definitely don't now we've tasted life in Morocco," agrees retired nurse Conticello, 69.

Intra-European migration, especially among retirees, is a long-established fact. Some 300,000 British nationals reside in France, for example, and it will be a long time before migration outside Europe's borders matches that. Given widely varying official statistics, it's hard to know just how popular the road to Morocco is. "The numbers are debatable, but what's beyond doubt is seniors buying homes in Morocco has grown exponentially over the past half decade," says Laurent Paul Alteresco, director of the real estate service company Ramses Consulting, which specializes in assisting non-Moroccans buying homes and relocating to the kingdom.

The French Embassy lists around 35,000 of its nationals as residents in Morocco — certainly not all pensioners. Still, there's indication many French seniors and younger expatriates don't even bother to register with their diplomatic missions. In Marrakech alone, for example, the number of French citizens signed in with their consulate in 2005 exceeded 3,300 (up nearly 60% since 2001), but fell short of the almost 7,000 residence permits local authorities say French nationals now hold. Some 17,000 homes in and around Marrakech, meanwhile, are French-owned. And while Marrakech and its cultural marvels have traditionally been the main destination of Europeans relocating to Morocco, coastal cities and towns like Agadir, Essaouira, Tangier and increasingly Rabat have become booming real estate markets with the arrival of house-hunting pensioners in recent years.

French transplants remain the largest group, but Italian and German seniors are also getting in on the rush — and the British contingent is becoming active in the higher-end sector. But as in any hot market, increased activity means rising prices. "Certain properties in beach areas have increased from €100 to €300 per square meter in three years," says Alteresco. Annual rise across the board, he estimates, has ranged from 80-100% over the past few years.

That's been a trend everywhere Europeans have started to call home. During her 11 years as a resident of Marrakech — where she's worked as an interior designer, hotel operator and property developer — former Paris-based lawyer Meryanne Loum-Martin has seen the local real estate market rapidly go from bubbling to booming. In particularly hot neighborhoods, she says, traditional riad villas that sold for j90,000 per hectare six years ago are now priced at €700,000. Per hectare prices in less effervescent areas have risen from €80,000 to €500,000 during the same period. "The only place that isn't rising as fast is the medina (old city), where many people who bought recently have been disappointed," she says. "Now they're selling — and joining the crowd looking to buy elsewhere in Marrakech or Morocco."