Want a Millenial Home? Try Fez, Morroco

Foreigners Start to Explore Market in Ancient Fez

By ABBY ARON

Published: February 11, 2010 in NY Times

FEZ, MOROCCO — At least one foreigner who has bought a house in Fez, the medieval city in northeastern Morocco, says the process requires vision and a lot of commitment.

“You are not going to find a house you love and live in it straight off,” explained Rebecca Eve, a Briton who is still renovating a house she bought two years ago in the Bab Guissa quarter for the equivalent of $110,000. “If you are lucky, you can get away with a simple upkeep project, but while the property market is in its infancy, the majority of homes require complete restoration.”

Inside the medina, or walled city, many of the 12,000 riads and dars, the local term for townhouses with courtyards, are more than 1,000 years old; “new” homes are usually at least 100. But it is this historic value that makes the Unesco World Heritage site so distinctive and heightens many buyers’ determination to restore properties authentically.

“You need to put the rest of your life on hold while doing it up,” said Ms. Eve, who started house hunting in Marrakech but found the prices more alluring in Fez, around 50 percent cheaper. “But it is time well spent, as there is always going to be a demand for restored medina homes.”

The historic value of such homes helps protect a buyer’s investment, according to Frances McKay of the real estate agency Francophiles, a British business that sells properties in France, Morocco and Cape Verde. “Because no two medina homes are the same, traditional properties will always keep their value when elsewhere real estate prices fluctuate,” she said.

On average, a three-bedroom unrestored property in the oldest part of the medina, the Andalusian Quarter, will sell for 250,000 to 350,000 Moroccan dirham, or $30,500 to $42,700. But while such homes are likely to have the most original features, they also are likely to need the most restoration.

These traditional homes are built of clay brick, sand and lime, which helps the walls “breathe” — making them cooler in the summer and warmer in the winter. Temperatures in this city of 1.5 million range from highs of 34 degrees Celsius (93 Fahrenheit) to lows of around 2 degrees (35 Fahrenheit).

In contrast, a 20th-century home along the outer rim of the medina, particularly in the Batha and Ziat neighborhoods, can start at 1 million dirham if it has parking, a rare feature in this predominantly pedestrian city.

Ms. Eve, along with her partner, Paul O’Sullivan, and their 2-year-old son, Finlay, are renting an apartment outside the medina while they wait for work to be completed on their new home, Dar Fin, named for their son.

Like most homes here, Dar Fin’s 4,000 square feet of living space surrounds a central courtyard, where the couple have added a fountain and plunge pool. Its four floors include four bedrooms, three living rooms and a roof terrace with views of the city’s famous landmark shrine to Moulay Idriss, founder of Fez.

Ms. Eve and Mr. O’Sullivan have modeled the décor on the Nejjarine Museum, the city’s museum of wood arts and crafts that is known for its own beautifully restored woodwork.

The couple are using recycled cedar for the ceilings and chalk-white plaster for the walls at Dar Fin. “We wanted to keep the décor simple so that it felt calm in comparison to the busyness of the streets outside,” Ms. Eve said.

In contrast, most restored homes in the city are adorned with zelliges, or patterned ceramic mosaics in primary colors, along with decorative sculptured plaster, stained glass and painted wood. The more elaborate the décor, the richer the owner, or so tradition goes.

There are no restrictions on foreign ownership of property in Morocco, but foreigners are advised to ensure that a thorough title search is conducted before a sale is closed. Local mortgages are available, although only through BMCE Bank and Crédit du Maroc, and for up to half the property’s value.

The resale market has not yet taken off in Fez, partly because the city continues to be a relatively new find for foreigners. Until 2007, there were no direct flights from any European capital and only one English-speaking real estate agency.

Even today, Fez’s role as the kingdom’s religious capital and its most conservative city means a Westerner will find living there much different from a more cosmopolitan city like Marrakech.

For example, Mike Richardson, owner of Café Clock, the medina’s only restaurant to stay open after sunset, said: “People are very suspicious of Café Clock. They assume that because it is open after dark, we are doing bad things.”

The Clock, as it is known, includes a cooking school and a cultural center that offers belly dancing classes, Arabic calligraphy lessons and concerts. “It has brought life to the medina in the evenings, which is something that has never occurred in the 1,200 years since the first stone was laid,” Mr. Richardson said. “I guess that is quite a lot to get used to.”

Despite the population’s reluctance to change, King Mohammed VI has plans to modernize the “new town,” the sprawling area of concrete homes that surrounds the medina.

The project, 2015 Fez, includes the construction of two tourist developments, Oued Fès and Ouislane, with a total of three hotels, golf courses, tennis clubs and shopping malls. It is part of Vision 2010, a nationwide plan of the king’s to increase Morocco’s tourism to 10 million visitors a year by expanding hotel capacity, creating 60,000 tourism jobs and regenerating the country’s coastlines. The local plan has not gathered much momentum yet, but officials say it is still on schedule.

Some privately funded construction in the area has been delayed, however, because of the global downturn and the tightening of regulations making it harder to use agricultural land for commercial purposes.

One notable new project that is almost complete is Les Colombes, positioned on the road between the airport and the medina.

Sixty-nine luxury villas, with individual prices starting at 5.1 million dirhams, are being developed by Pack Energy, a Moroccan company headed by Houria Benjelloun, one of Morocco’s few female developers. Sales are scheduled to begin in mid-March, with foreign buyers offered 50 percent mortgages at 6.6 percent interest.