Letters: House prices are set by the free market - even in France

To the Editor,

I write in response to your online story about the row over a French house on sale for five times more than buyer paid in 2018.

Row as French house on sale for five times more than buyer paid in 2018

Locals want to stop purchase by an American saying property speculation means they can no longer afford to buy

It is a fundamental tenet of a free-market society that if one lives in a country where the price of property is governed by market forces, where the ‘value’ of an item is governed by the amount that someone is willing to pay for it and where constitutionally everyone has the liberté to price their item for sale as they wish then one has to accept that the occasional rich American might pay over the odds for his coup de cœur in Ayherre (Pyrénées-Atlantiques).

Ian Halliday, Cantal