With a rich vocabulary - "telluric", "autarky" - The Fly-Truffler tells of grieving Philippe Cabassac, a linguistics lecturer who ekes out an existence on a dwindling family estate, haunted by the memory of a student, Julieta, with whom he has had an affair.
Local governments might be expected to benefit from newcomers and the increased tax revenue they promise, but the dwindling real estate values in most of these towns has bumped down assessments.
"It has all kinds of implications for elections," says Frey. "People running for office in these places have to appeal to a whole new section of people". Local governments might be expected to benefit from newcomers and the increased tax revenue they promise, but the dwindling real estate values in most of these towns has bumped down assessments.
What open space that remains is a scattered network of parks, parklets, preserves and playing fields, private and public golf courses and a dwindling inventory of estate lands.
Not only is the mortgage business dwindling, but non-real estate lending isn't growing, either.
This, he says, will inevitably increase the problems bound up with people just passing through, and the estate's dwindling community spirit.
But those remittances are likely to dwindle, affecting real estate values in Pakistani cities and families who live in poorer rural areas.
From 2003 to 2012, as cemetery real estate dwindled, grave prices in Beijing rose 15-fold, according to the state-run Beijing News – in some choice graveyards, to £35,000 per square metre.
"Assets like stock holdings, bonds, 401(k) plans, equity funds have dwindled, but real estate has escalated to such a point that trying to get an apartment away from a spouse is like trying to take a piece of steak from a tiger".
For two decades, Sister Nicole has been telling her fellow sisters that they are better off taking their dwindling funds out of real estate and placing them in stocks and bonds, carefully picked to conform, where possible, with humanist values.
