LaPlante Appraisals' Blog

After over a month and I'm blogging again. The month of August was a whirlwind of travel, including vacationing in France. The vacation was a well needed refresh and restart after the last 10 months of starting my own company. There has been a lot of grinding, networking and educating. 

So for this month, I wanted to share some of my photos from my vacation. I went on a Cruise with Ama Waterways, which I HIGHLY recommend by the way, and we cruised along the Seine River through the Normandy Region. The highlight was eating my way through France, which included dining at two separate Micheline Star restaurants. My second favorite had to be visiting Claude Monet's Lily Garden in Giverny.  

   

Although I enjoyed the vacation, I found myself using my "appraiser mind" and wondering about zoning, building, construction and renting rules in each city I visited. Driving through one town, our tour guide pointed out thatcher roofs in a village, explaining that they last up to 50 years and require more maintenance while the slate roofs can last up to 100 years. That amazed me! Their roofs in France double or triple the life span of ours! Would you spend extra money in order to have a longer lasting roof? 

In the town Honfleur, a small port city, our tour guide pointed out the apartment style homes and the number of floors. On one side, there were 4 floors and on the backside there were 5 floors. She explained that due to the topography, one side of the street was higher than the other. Typically the ground floor was a business or shop with a second story for storage. Then the backside of the street you accessed apartments and living quarters that started on the third-fifth floors. I found that fascinating and it reminded me mixed-use zoning allowances in Maricopa County.

You can always learn something new when traveling into a new country. Overall it was a refreshing and enlightening vacation.