Planning to have another look

[DerekJ]

Firstly, hallo to everyone as this is my first post on these forums that I found rather by chance.  I've been reading a lot of the posts for the last couple of weeks and have found some really useful information.

My wife and I made our first house hunting trip to France a couple of months back. We were looking in the general area between the rivers Lot and Dordogne. Prior to the trip we'd done a lot of reading up and had a meeting with a UK based French notaire as we were particularly concerned to properly understand the inheritance issues.

We viewed quite a few houses and at the end of the trip ended up making an offer on a property near to Souilliac. We returned without having actually signed the CdV.  As part of the offer we asked for a bit more land to be included but this was rejected as the sale was part of a divorce settlement. The wife was selling the house and the husband owned the additional bit of land we wanted. After some soul searching we decided we would still continue. We had a survey done on the property which threw up a couple of things but not showstoppers. However, we went back to the agent and said we would want these issues resolving by the currrent owners. Then, prior to a response from the agents I discovered some chicken processing activity in the village and reports of smell and flies.  As a result of these factors we ended up pulling out of the purchase (no CdV had been signed).

We will return to do some searching probably early in the new year. Of course, the Euro/pound exchange rate has been taking a bit of a battering so we have to keep an eye on that. I don't know how beneficial it will be to house hunt during the off season in terms of getting a lower offer accepted?

Also we are aware of the health changes but as we don't initially plan to live in France for more than 6 months we will retain our UK residency (and house) and will have to rely on our existing health arrangements. One area I'm not sure on is whether our EHIC will give us reasonable cover if we are in France for an extended period ( under the 6 months though).

One thing we have noticed is that a lot of houses we are keeping a watching eye on seem to have been on the market for some time. I get the impression that is is more the norm in France but it also makes me wonder if we are attracted to hard to sell properties!

Oh, the final thing (sorry for the long ramble) is that my wife speaks reasonable French. I'm doing quite a bit of self study and have been using the "Hugo French in 3 months" and now the "Hugo Advanced French" books and CDs. So far I've found these very good and I like the format.

[Will]

A couple of points.

First, if a house has been on the market for a long time, it could be that it has been poorly marketed - most (not all) notaires and a lot of French agents have little grasp of marketing. More likely is that it is overpriced. This is very common, sellers decide what they want to achieve and just wait for the market to catch up. It may be that they do want to sell, in which case if the house has hung around the sellers are more likely to take an offer, As to what sort of offer, you can only judge by looking at similar houses in the area (bear in mind that land values in France are much lower than in England so don't be misled or seduced by many acres, particularly if it's not a full time residence). There are always the clever Dicks who say that they got their house for 40% of the asking price so you should do the same. All that proves is that the place was drastically overvalued in the first place - a lot of French houses are. Just do your research, and ask the agent or notaire if an offer is likely to be considered.

Secondly, your plan of staying in the NHS and using an EHIC, splitting your time between France and Britain is quite OK in principle. The only difficulty is if you intend to take your six months all in one go. That can cause difficulty because if you are in France for more than three months you are considered to have taken up residence, so you will be expected (in the near future) to get a certificate from the mairie, arrange health insurance etc. Likewise if you are out of Britain for more than three months, then you can, as far as the NHS is concerned, be deemed to have moved away, so you could be refused free treatment, EHIC etc. So as long as you time your stays in the respective countries in sensibly-sized chunks you should be fine.

[DerekJ]

[quote user="Will"]

A couple of points.

First, if a house has been on the market for a long time, it could be that it has been poorly marketed - most (not all) notaires and a lot of French agents have little grasp of marketing. [/quote]

Will, thanks for the reply. I very much agree with this statement. I'm amazed at some of the photographs that are used to sell  houses... ironing boards up with clothes waiting to be ironed etc.

I understand your point about pricing. My general presumption (right or wrong) is that the vendor may be more likely to accept an offer in the off season.

[quote user="Will"]

Secondly, your plan of staying in the NHS and using an EHIC, splitting your time between France and Britain is quite OK in principle. The only difficulty is if you intend to take your six months all in one go. That can cause difficulty because if you are in France for more than three months you are considered to have taken up residence, so you will be expected (in the near future) to get a certificate from the mairie, arrange health insurance etc. Likewise if you are out of Britain for more than three months, then you can, as far as the NHS is concerned, be deemed to have moved away, so you could be refused free treatment, EHIC etc. So as long as you time your stays in the respective countries in sensibly-sized chunks you should be fine.

[/quote]

Thanks for clarifying the 3 month rule. I think this would work OK for us. Initially I would be at the house more often than my wife but probably for not more 4 to 8 weeks at a time.

[WJT]

Hi DerekJ and welcome to the forum. I have found that buying seasons in France don't seem to make much difference in regards to offers being accepted. Outside of the busy summer months when it would be difficult to view properties, I would say that Autumn and Spring are the best times to sell perhaps and those that didn't sell would still be available over winter (perhaps many winters).

I looked for a property for on and off over a couple of years and very solidly for over one year. However, this was 2004 and the market has totally changed now. It is definitely a buyers market and you have so much more choice than we had at the time (lucky you [:)]). Someone might know better than I, but I don't think the time of year, barring any personal circumstance of the seller, will make any difference at all.

I still have a look at property sites just out of curiosity and check out the odd estate agency window and there are still some of the same properties for sale I saw over four years ago![blink] I think this just proves the resiliency of the French. [:)] By the way, our property is in S.E. Dordogne.

Personally,  I would say that you would have to take a view of each property you look at and it's individual circumstances instead of taking a blanket approach. There may be some that would be willing to negotiate hard and others not willing to budge but hopefully the agent can give you an idea of what may be acceptable. Remember, even though it may not always work out this way, the agent is paid by the buyer therefore works for you unlike in the UK where they work for the seller.

Good luck and hopefully you will find the one soon.

[DerekJ]

Thanks for the welcome WJT. I hope I don't end up asking too many dumb questions.

You make some interesting points re the French psyche on house buying/selling. It's useful to be aware of the differences.

[johnnyboy]

Ah,someone else who plays "hunt the ironing board"[:D] We used to have lots of laughs over the presentation aspect of house hunting in France.Seems that few have the slightest idea of how to prepare a house for sale!

On a more serious note, do not ever be tempted to put in an offer based on photo's. It may seem obvious, but there those out there who have done just that.

We viewed one place which was being raved about and when we arrived to view it the stench from the abbatoire was overpowering.Also thought that the town looked to be dying on its feet as we entered too.Needless to say ,we moved on even quicker than we arrived!

Always worth trying to haggle over price, you can always walk away if not entirely happy.

We managed to get a small reduction on ours, have to view that as positive due to amount of work required.

Bset of luck to you both,Johnnyboy.

[Anton Redman]

The slaughterhouse and worse. 14 years ago we viewed a huse which macerated its waste then discharge through 40 mm pipe into eventually the duck pound. As did the other dozen houses - this summer it was just the same. 

[woolybanana]

Happy ducks?

[PaulT]

From comments we had from some agents it would seem that in the summer months they view the British as passing the time by looking at houses. They seem fairly fed up about that. Outside of the summer season then you are looked at as serious buyers.

[DerekJ]

Thanks for the comments. Although we did try and ascertan whether any "nasties" were happening in the locale when we actually doing the house hunting we had missed the chicken processing and it was more by good luck when doing some web searching for the village in question that we discovered the potential problem.  This will make us a lot more careful in future but in some ways I'm not sure how best to be a detective.  Whilst one can drive/walk around that isn't any guarantee of spotting danger areas. Whether or not you get to actually smell anything is often very dependant on the wind direction.  Of course, you can ask the agent but would you get a straight answer?  Any thought?

As to summer house hunting... yes, I take your point. In our case it just coincided with when we'd finally made the decision to go for it. We did have the majority of our viewings prebooked after web searching multiple agencies so I hope they took us seriously (oh, btw. No we would never consider buying without seeing - several times probably).

We are thinking of doing our next hunting trip around end of February/early March. To be honest I'd rather view a property when there isn't the rosy glow of hot sun.... sort of see it at its worst.