Paolo

[quote]Miki wrote of Queen Vic: "No, I think she had a Ford Prefect."Correct. She called it Albert and liked to give it a regular servicing herself, including changing the rings. After Albert went west (no s...[/quote] Nice one! Paolo

Renaud, Miki, M. Parfitt is the forum administrator. Paolo

When I move back to France, which I will, one thing I won't miss is Kingston upon Thames. Do you know it? It has got less soul than Charlie Chaplin's boots. What I know I will miss, because I did last time, are the quality of British newspapers and BBC radio. I know you can get both on the internet now but it's not the same. Paolo

Croydon? Croydon is the Manhattan of Surrey, a gleaming city of the future, bright with promise and expectation, plus it's got an Ikea. If you can make it in Croydon you'll make it anywhere in east Surrey. About visiting Father Christmas in Bentall's - go there at Christmas these days and instead of Santa Claus you get an automated band of musical bears belting out carols and Elvis songs on the hour. Children and chavs cram around to watch with eyes glazed, munching on their festive Big Macs, as the switch is flicked and the unlikely troupe launches into another rendition of  'Are you lonesome tonight'. See what I mean about soulless? Paolo

Dick, As there are rows on this forum about most things, how about a stand-up barney on the soulfulness of Kingston? Kingston is a mass of chain shops, chain pubs, chain restaurants, chain people all filing into one of the two great cathedrals in the town - Bentall's and John Lewis. This is a place where you know that bad weather days are best for venturing in, because on beautiful sunny days most of the surrounding populace celebrates the fact by going shopping.There isn't a single decent restaurant in Kingston, unless you like kebabs and pizza. The river is now walled in with 'luxury' apartment buildings. And, not that I have anything against them, but it seems to be some sort of mecca for 'chavs'. On the other hand, the Market Place is alright. I have a book of photos showing Kingston as it was in the olden days and it does look very nice. My father-in-law assures me it was all very different back then. I suppose my real problem with Kingston is that it is not Richmond, where we can't afford to live. Anyway, I will fight you to the death over this - Kingston is not soulful! Paolo

"But what was the name of the one outside the gates of Bushey Park and on the Court maze side" I think that is called the Kings Arms. Frere Jacques is a 'French' chain restaurant just after Kingston Bridge on the Kingston side. That whole area is now concrete, apartments and restaurants/pubs/cafes - all curiously soulless, like the rest of Kingston (in my humble opinion). So there you are MDW: it never rains in England, it isn't freezing, but it's always overcast and that certain je ne sais quoi is missing. Paolo

Incidentally, I heard on the radio the other day (Radio 4 so it must be true) that London is technically a desert. Although Britain gets lots of rainfall, London is in the 'rain-shadow' of the hills to the west. London gets less rain than Madrid and other cities I have forgotten. Who'd have thought it? Paolo

[quote]Well, where in France do you go? Not up here in Mayenne, obviously. The weather here has been bloody awful all winter, and the summer was terrible too. This is the wettest, foggiest place I have ever ...[/quote] Ah no, I go way down south, where it's always sunny. Paolo

Miki, My ignorance of Kingstonians couldn't be much deeper. I think they sold their ground to the new Wimbledon(?) and were relegated. Micky Droy I remember from the days when Chelsea really were Chelsea - pretty useless on the pitch and not too welcoming in the Shed. Were those the good old days, or is that now? Kingston one-way is still a thing of beauty. Certainly convinces me not to bother driving in. Bushey Park though, just over the bridge, now you're talking... (Is this off-topic, or what?) Paolo

Miki, Kingston upon Thames, the very same. Alright so I was laying it on with a heavy trowel to cheer up MadDogWoman, it's not all bad. But what I forgot to mention, and what is really getting me down, is that Chelsea are going to win the league. Get me out of here! Paolo

Teamedup, Poetic licence! I'm in sunny Kingston by the way. It has felt like a very grey winter, and every time we go to France it is blazing sunshine - coincidence or selective memory? Paolo

I'm in the UK. The sky is totally grey for the 83rd day in a row; it's cold (but in a damp way); I can hear the traffic clogged up on the road, punctuated by sirens; all the trees are bare and lifeless; the food in my fridge tastes like coloured water; I can't get planning permission for my wall because all 'officials' seem to have been turned into unthinking automatons; I can't look forward to my Monday night sauna because my expensive health club's efforts to "swiftly resolve the situation to a satisfactory conclusion as soon as is possible at this time to be perfectly honest with you" do not extend to buying a new heating element in the two months since the last one broke; my children would rather be gambolling in fields this afternoon than being dragged through the hell of shops that is a British town; and it's Monday morning. So shoulders back and chin up - it won't be Monday morning forever! Paolo

Hello Shawn, Let me emphasise that I don't know the Brittany rentals market at first hand. I do hear from British owners that the market is flooded by Brits and other North Europeans. But I don't think that should necessarily put you off your idea, if your idea is good enough. I have a one-bedroom and a two-bedroom village house in Provence, in a part of the world that is on the tourist trail. I know people all around me who are getting very few bookings, even in summer - one perfectly decent house managed no bookings last year. So the market there can also be said to be flooded. However, the people who are suffering are the ones with a 3/4-bedroom house with pool. Their season really runs about 12 weeks from June to September, coinciding with school holidays. And the supply exceeds demand. I am assuming that when people say that Brittany is over-supplied with gites, they mean bigger than one-bedroom. My houses get bookings all year, and if my life depended on it I could probably get 12 months of bookings (which believe me, you don't want). That's because there is a very good market of couples who travel the world outside of school holidays - they want to avoid the crowds and benefit from cheaper prices, and also to experience the 'real' France, Italy, etc. Typically they are reasonably well off, 50s and older, and fairly 'refined'. And also not British - more American, Canadian, Aus/NZ. But in Brittany you could add the British to that list because of its proximity to the UK. How do you tap into this market of couples spinning around Europe? Three steps: - It's all about location. Your gite will have to be in a well-known spot, like a picturesque village, and easily accessible from overseas. Villages are much better than rural hideaways because the clientele I am describing want to be able to walk to the shops and restaurants and take part in village life. A fishing village with great restaurants is a year-round attraction, and food is no worse in winter than in summer. - Get a house with a view. In Brittany, the best thing is a seaview, although this may be beyond your budget. You need to be able to show something in your marketing that will make people think 'Wow!' - You'll need to invest in making your house beautiful - well decorated and furnished, but also well appointed: walk-in shower, central heating, working fireplace, waste disposal, half-size dishwasher, quality linens and towels, etc. Not like a holiday house, like a real home. If on the other hand you are thinking of getting a farmhouse out in the countryside with a couple of little outhouses to convert - my opinion isn't worth a hell of a lot in that part of France but I would say 6 months of bookings is optimistic. I wouldn't bother with agencies, they take too much commission and are probably going to be far less effective than online advertising and your own website. I also wouldn't focus too much on the pink pound/dollar. To quote Kevin Costner, "If you build it, they will come." About 20% of my renters are gay couples, but I don't target them specifically. We're all the same, we all type the same phrases into Google - "village house in brittany", not "gay village house in brittany"! All things being equal, what you do with your internet marketing will determine whether you succeed. If you follow the link in my signature it will take you to a free advice resource for rental owners that should give you plenty of ideas. Bon Courage! Paolo

Hello all, I have read through past threads with interest, and this question has sort of been covered before but I'll post it in case there is anything new to add... Can anyone recommend an English-language website for advertising French property for sale, direct from the owner? I know French Property News does it, are there are any others you have found effective or liked the look of? The property is in the Vaucluse by the way. Or are there other effective ways to tap into the UK market of buyers? I'd like to avoid using an agent and split the saving with the buyer. Thanks for any ideas. Paolo

Hi Marie, The posts above are absolutely right - you can keep the money with good conscience. However...in certain circumstances I would give them the money back. If I knew for sure that I had not turned anyone else away for that week (i.e. it wasn't marked as booked on an availability calendar), and I was confident they were cancelling for a good reason (bereavement rather than they found something better), I'd figure - they haven't done anything wrong, and I haven't lost out on anything, so why shouldn't they get their money back? You may get them back another time because you've made them happy, or they may recommend you to friends because you have done them a good turn. Just thought I'd give you an alternative view to muddy the waters! Paolo

Hi Tris, The question of which is the best website to advertise on is something of a holy grail. The answer will be different for each property. Even in one area, the effectiveness of a site will vary for different kinds of property. A site can only optimise itself for so many phrases. So one site may be found more easily for 'holiday apartments in Charente', another for 'Charente villas'. This makes personal recommendations of sites less valuable than you might think. But you can find out for yourself which are the best sites. They will be the sites that come up most often on the first page of search engine results for the phrases most likely to be used to find a property like yours. That's a bit of a mouthful! The great thing about the internet (or one of them) is that you can put yourself in the shoes of your potential clients. You can see exactly the same results as they will, and then place yourself in their line of sight by advertising on the right sites. I have written an article on how to do this, which explains a methodical approach to finding the best rental sites for your property. The short one is here: http://www.laymyhat.com/newsletters/newsletter3.htm The eye-glazing long version is here: http://www.laymyhat.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=257 Incidentally, if it's your first year, I would recommend advertising on about 5 paid-for listing sites. In your second year you can assess how each performed and 'trim the fat', if any. There are some free ones, but generally you get what you pay for, and I would not rely on free sites for bookings. By the way I am not affiliated to any sites, I run Lay My Hat which is an advice site for rental owners, by rental owners. The best listing sites is a popular topic of discussion, as you can imagine. Good luck with your new venture!   Paolo

I don't know if we'll ever beat Paul Young! Try laymyhat instead... Paolo

Hi Gary, Lies, lies and damned lies! We talked a little about this in a recent thread here: http://www.livingfrance.com/instantforum/shwmessage.aspx?ForumID=16&MessageID=46522&TopicPage=2 Someone saying that they will "guarantee my website gets found on the first 2 pages of a google search" may as well guarantee you the pick of Hollywood's leading ladies for your next wife. There are hundreds of phrases for which your site will always be top of Google. Take any long string of words from your site, put them in double quotation marks, and paste into Google, and you will be number one. Unfortunately nobody in the history of the world will ever perform that search. There should be some reasonably useful phrases for which your site can get on the first two pages of Google - for example 'holiday house with pool in cotentin' may be possible if you optimise a page around that phrase. There won't be huge competition for this phrase, then again there will be very few searches performed using this phrase (the up side of this is that the more focused a phrase, the likelier the searcher is to want to book your house when they do find it, so whilst only a handful of people type the phrase into Google, maybe one or two will result in a booking enquiry). So if someone guarantees Google placement, ask for which specific phrases that would be. In any case I would never accept such an offer, even if it was free or money-back guaranteed. You CAN cheat the search engines, by using short-term tricks, but they will catch up to you and penalise you, dropping your site to page 1,000 of their search results. It's not worth it! Paolo

I don't know if this is advertising - please delete if appropriate... If you are not sure about your website, or if you don't have one at all and would like to know how to go about making one, there are two interesting things happening at Lay My Hat (this is a free advice site for rental owners which I run). One is a website review section - you just ask for your website to be reviewed by other owners, and you get feedback on how you might improve it in terms of design, writing and search engine performance. You can also add your ideas about other people's sites. The other is really interesting I think - an owner in Normandy was fishing quite unsubtly for someone to take pity on her and help her with a site. So now we're all building one for her as a sort of community project, contributing what we know to different stages of its development. It's going from the very beginning of site creation, which is asking the client what the site should say and to whom. And it will continue through to appearing online and perhaps pay-per-click advertising. Every step is discussed so you can see the thinking behind the decisions. You can take part in the project, or you can use it as a real-time guide to creating your own site from scratch. You can see both these projects here: http://www.laymyhat.com/forum Paolo

Danglar, That ranking you asked about is Google's PageRank, which is a score out of 10 attributed to a webpage. It is supposed to be a measure of the 'importance' of a webpage. What it measures is the number and quality of links to that page. The thinking is that the better a page is, the more other sites will want to link to it - each inbound link is like a vote for a site. The higher the PageRank of a page linking to yours, the more valuable the link is (in Google’s eyes). There are other factors, for instance if the linking site is in the same sector as yours. A really great link for us would be from the homepage of British Airways. At the other end of the scale, a link from a local restaurant. A higher PageRank is supposed to boost you in Google’s search results. That’s why Paul is please with a PageRank of 5, which is good for a personal website. Presumably he has achieved that by linking to his homepage from many of the 100+ ads he runs. People do tend to agonise over their PageRanks, but there is a lot of talk amongst those who care about these things that you should now just ignore PageRank altogether, because Google have let it slide. I like Miki’s method better! If you want to see your PageRank or that of other sites you have to download the Google toolbar here: http://toolbar.google.com/ I have it on my machine and I like it. It puts a little Google searchbox in the grey bit at the top of your browser window, so you don’t have to go to over to Google to do a search. It blocks pop-up ads if you ask it to. And it displays the PageRank of whichever page you are on. It’s free by the way. Paolo

'We have our own site and are on over 100 or so others, some paying but most of them free' Blimey! Over 100?! How do you manage this, is it worth it in money and time? Or do you have a fairly automated process? Any good free ones you'd recommend? Sorry, not related to Chez Nous, but I'm impressed! Paolo

Upcoming guest: "Will we be able to get by in the village? We don't speak any Italian." Me: "Don't worry - no one else in the village speaks Italian either." Paolo

I've added a page of resources to my site. They are links to tutorials and articles (all free) which are aimed at beginners. In some cases, absolute beginners. You can even learn html from square one. I've look for useful pages on writing for the internet, web design, and SEO, as these should be the main concerns of rental owners with their own websites. There are many free resources out there covering everything you could ever want to know about internet marketing. But if you don't want to look for yourself, you can see what I have found here: http://www.laymyhat.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=187 I'm adding to it as I find other resources or they are suggested to me. If this is considered advertising, please delete! Paolo

Jake, An American listing site, Cyberrentals, has 3 examples of rental agreements which it encourages you to use or adapt. They are for holiday lets and may need anglicising: http://www3.cyberrentals.com/lease1.html Otherwise, as suggested, look on Google. I'd search for 'lease agreement example'. Paolo

lynarth, From your mention of which sites to advertise on, I am not sure if you mean letting your house for weekly holiday rentals or for a long-term let? They are vey different considerations. Also, whereabouts is the house? Paolo