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Selling my house


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Good for you - I just wish our house would sell.  We now have it on with 3 different agents, who also have it on various websites but still no viewings.  We've dropped the price. The latest agent said the rooms were too small and suggested knocking down walls - a No to that. The problem we have is that we are remote, in a small hamlet about 3 miles from the nearest small town and it is a maison secondaire so we're not there all the time.

Does anyone know if the French hold House sale auctions?

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Jean S, some info here:

[url]http://www.french-property.com/guides/france/purchase-real-estate/auction/[/url]

edit:  info is directed at buyers but you will still get the idea of how auctions are conducted; probably best to ask a notaire near your house for detailed info that is relevant to your endroit

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  • 2 months later...
Has anyone heard of Worldwide group enterprises Ltd.  They sell property on the web - charging £500 plus VAT.  They hold exhibitions in Russia/China etc. Their registed address is in Northern Ireland

I first heard of them on thie site about 3 years ago.  We are thinking of using them to sell out house.

We've beat them down to £250 plus VAT but I'm still having second thoughts.

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I'd keep away from these sort of agents; I think it'd be just money down the drain.

If you're getting viewers but no offers, then there's something in your house that viewers don't like - ask the agents and see if there's any way to improve it. If you aren't getting viewers, then your asking price is too high. I'd stick with 2 agents plus a local notaire plus adverts on Leboncoin and all the other free sites but asking only the 'net vendeur' price.
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I looked at their site and they claim to have 153 properties in France, most of them holiday homes. I searched on my department - no results. They have property all over the world. There are similar sites just for France like the ones who advertise in The Connexion but they don't have many properties.

We have our old house with a local agent, also Leggetts and two agent's agents, one of whom put the house on Leboncoin. We've had a few viewings. We also put our own ad on the shutter in case someone walks past and is interested (that's how next door sold!).
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THanks for all your comments. We also have the house with French agents, one is English and is an agent for a French agent plus she has her own website. It is on leboncoin and green acres.

I don't think some French agents are not as procative as agents in the UK. We don't get any feedback from viewings - I have to chase them.  I've asked their opinion about what we can do to kick start  but only the English lady has come up with any suggestions and has re-worded the details. We've also reduced the price.  Our problems is that it is remote, in a small hamlet. Still never mind it will soon be a New Year and things may change.

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With respect to those with adverts on leboncoin, are they ads placed by agents instead of by yourself?

I ask because I have seen thousands of annonces on leboncoin, and I do mean thousands, both when I placed my own ad and when I searched for my present house.

The photos are sometimes OK but there are nearly always not enough of them to give potential purchases an all round idea of what the house is like to live in.  The details given are too scanty and do not encourage viewings.

As for the text, that is the absolute worst element of all!  Why do they squash all the info into one single paragraph, with hardly any punctuation and no spaces in between the important stuff? Not only is that unattractive, it actually makes the particulars difficult to read.

It's important to set things out clearly and then throw in some sort of hook, for example, you could have the ride-on mower, the view is magnifigue, we even have a dentist in the village, there is an excellent leisure centre, etc etc.

That's the way to do it.  Oh, and don't forget to have your best photos on the site, that is when the sun is shining and all your roses are out.

Finally, have some good colour photocopies made of the particulars and a list of the main features and give them to people who have viewed.  These will remind them of what the have seen, especially if they are serious house hunters and are looking at many properties.  Personally, I also had floor plans and a plan of the whole plot (to scale) showing where the garden house is, other features such as fountains, paths, lakes, specimen trees and gave those to the people making a second viewing.

All this might sound like a lot of trouble but I treated the whole exercise like I would a job that was going to pay me handsomely.

Good Luck to all those going through the process!

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I was going to put an ad on Leboncoin but one of the agents got there first. I just checked and it was renewed two days ago so comes high on a search. It has 5 photos and the text is pretty comprehensive. This agent has had more viewings than the others so it seem to work.

There are a lot of properties for sale in our village, but it's a popular one. We can only hope! A holiday home along the street took 4 years to sell. It was way overpriced at first and ours is nicer....
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We have had more Brits house hunting this year, it has dwindled to almost zero over the last three to five years and properties appear to be moving again but very slowly. They seem to want a very big bang for their bucks to the point where houses I know and thought reasonably priced have been marked as very over priced by those looking. Strange that, as most house prices are around what they were five to ten years ago.These went up quite a bit in the first five years we came here, almost doubling in value, but there has been quite a decline. One house I know was sold for less than they paid six years ago and during the two years it was on the market had double glazing fitted, new kitchen and a total repaint both in and out. I guess it's OK if you DIY it otherwise you might just as well reduce the price by the amount these items cost and not bother doing them but people seem to want a higher standard these days. The Scousers who came five or six years ago to buy cheap properties to renovate and resell have all gone now probably because they didn't understand the French system and the taxes involved plus nobody bought them, most are still up for sale. Their prices are not far off the pre-renovation prices and some were real wrecks.
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[quote user="Mrs Trellis"]I was going to put an ad on Leboncoin but one of the agents got there first. I just checked and it was renewed two days ago so comes high on a search. It has 5 photos and the text is pretty comprehensive. This agent has had more viewings than the others so it seem to work.

There are a lot of properties for sale in our village, but it's a popular one. We can only hope! A holiday home along the street took 4 years to sell. It was way overpriced at first and ours is nicer....[/quote]

A couple of comments which I hope will be helpful!

Firstly, there is NOTHING to stop you putting your own ad on leboncoin.  Nobody gets "there first"!  As long as you have not given any agent an exclusive mandat and you have told them you retained the right to sell the house yourself, you are just as entitled as any agent to put your own ad out there.

However, as I am a fair person and play cricket, I made my ad the same price as the agents'.  Also, I did not invite any agent to sell my house; the agents contacted me to request that I allowed them to sell, having seen and been attracted by my advert.  Therefore, I dictated my own terms, one of which was that they used my own photos and that I was to be present at viewings.

I don't know about professionals but the renewing of an advert does not necessarily mean that there has been interest.  For private individuals, you are invited to renew after 2 months is up.

5 photos, fine, and I guess that is what professional advertisers get in their package.  I paid a little bit extra (a few euros) for TEN photos.

Also, I am not saying that the text is not comprehensive.  I am saying that they nearly always take the form of one "breathless" paragraph with everything cramped in, rather like the spiel that telephone cold callers give.  I mean organising and spacing out the information, lots of white spaces between paragraphs and topics, giving info that people like to know such as the dimensions of principal rooms and a bit about amenities in the area.

Leboncoin is specialised advertising.  People who go there tend to be those looking for bagains and indeed tend to be those looking to avoid agents and "pros".  I am a massive fan of leboncoin and barely a month passes when I don't buy something or other via the site.  I have bought furniture and handkerchiefs, dahlia bulbs and winter coats.  I only buy when an item of similar quality and value cannot be had elsewhere, after paying for postage or furniture remover.  In that sense, your own advert is not going to be the same as that of an immo because the people looking at personal ads are the very people who do not want to pay immo fees.

I could go on and on but I am getting rather tired now of repeating the same points time and time again on threads re selling houses.

All I would finally emphasise is, take the time and trouble to oversee your own sale, keep smiling and think positive thoughts, treat viewers with respect and friendliness (but no over the top hard sell), be generous (maybe give stuff away that you don't really want), be fair and honest in all your dealings, never grudge the time you spend showing people around even if you think they are time wasters (never ever assume that such people might not know someone in the market for a house) and remind yourself why you bought that house and get that excitement across to your purchasers.

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One thing which most French agents fail to do but which you must do is to put the room dimensions into the ad. I have seen a couple of lovely places but had to turn them down because the bedrooms were just too small, for example.

Anyone selling or buying in the Vendee and Brittany, try Agence Newton. They have worked VERY hard to keep my sale moving along and to clean up the mess created by the notaires.
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All good points Mint.

The agents don't ask us to be there when they have a viewing (the house in not lived in now) which might make people more honest in their opinions! But we would be more enthusiastic and able to answer all questions.

You said 'The renewing of an advert does not necessarily mean that there has been interest. ' I didn't mean to suggest that; just meant that the agent who put the ad in Leboncoin has had more viewings than the others.

I'm not sure how useful it would be to have our own ad online alongside the agent's. I guess we'd feel honour bound to make it the same price but we'd get a little more with no commission. But I'm going to put our ad back on the shutter and our price could be a bit lower (but not stated on the poster).

The other agent's agent is linked to Agence Newton.

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In our area houses will sell within a month or two. I dare say 99.99999 % buyers are French.

Don't buy or move to rural France unless it is for life. When I say rural that is more than a 20 minute commute to a major city centre.

Houses will sell in rural France but you have to price them correctly. A 5 bed beautifully renovated house in the middle of nowhere priced at 50,000 euros will sell very quickly.
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  • 4 months later...
[quote user="alittlebitfrench"]In our area houses will sell within a month or two. I dare say 99.99999 % buyers are French.

Don't buy or move to rural France unless it is for life. When I say rural that is more than a 20 minute commute to a major city centre.

Houses will sell in rural France but you have to price them correctly. A 5 bed beautifully renovated house in the middle of nowhere priced at 50,000 euros will sell very quickly.[/quote]

Thanks for the info..
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