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Our first soir'ee into the market place.


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My wife and I have just returned from an exploratory trip to The Languedoc. First impression?

Yes that will do nicely. The climate was mild and pleasant mid Feb early March.

The people that we came into contact with very friendly and extremely helpful despite our lack of fluency with the language (however we did try and got by, proud of that actually.)

My only disappointment was the house hunting itself?

We thought we had taken care of that before we left the UK, having contacted a company in Docklands and arranged to meet with their representatives on particular dates we thought that they might have taken the time to seek suitable properties for us to view prior to arrival.

After a day or two to acclimatise and orientate ourselves we, went into Pezanes and met up with the agents agent. We then spent 2 hours in the office going through the various properties that he had managed to put into a file. Then we went to lunch and then we went to look at houses. (At last!)

Of the 6 we whittled it down to 3 (Price and not the actual accommodation etc being the overbearing factor on the agents part I think.600.000+)

We had requested 1 large property or 2 smaller properties with enough room to hold 6 persons without getting under each others feet. (My wife and I ) (My Daughter and her husband and their 2 children).

The first property was an ex Chambre d' Hote in the middle of nowhere could have doubled up as Bates Motel in another life.

The second a beautiful Maison de Maitre of 32+ rooms (2/3rds habitable and with so many original features it was like a history lesson in 1845 living),

the 3rd another Maison de Maitre approx 1/3 the size of the previous home this time with a pool. All in the 650 to 750 range.

We repeated the excercise in the Oriental Pyrenees (Having taken the 2 hour drive and the obligatory lunch) we saw 2 houses. What a waste of a whole day. This went on for another couple of days and after almost 3 weeks we had seen 8 houses not a rewarding experience but an experience all the same.

My question is. Is there actually a tried and tested method of seeking purchasing a house in the area without the performance and friend of a friend and another 20% commission chucked in for good measure. Is there a site or does anybody know of anywhere where private sales take precedence over big eyes.

 

 

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I know it may be difficult but I would recommend spending time there yourself and do not rely on agents. If possible, for example rent a gite for a few weeks or longer and visit as many local agents in the area you prefer as possible. I for one would never use a UK intermediary. By the way after looking for two years albeit in a sellers market at the time, I finally found our property by renting a gite for five weeks.

In my experience it is much better to be there on the ground and dealing directly with the French agents. For what it is worth, I never had lunch with any agent I dealt with, I spent all of my time with them strictly driving to (sometimes following because I would want to shoot straight off to the next one) viewing properties.

Unlike our situation in 2002 and then finally buying in 2004, I would imagine with the current market and your budget you should have no problem finding your dream property. Lucky you. [:)]

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I guess I could have been more helpful with a site, instead of something you probably already knew. [:)] Quillan's site was one of my favourites another good one is  www.fnaim.com and   www.123immo.com  ,  www.french-property.com . This is an English site but not sure if they work as an intermediary because they do have houses for sale by owner on the site, they could work from a small fee. But in any case you can look at what is available in the area through different agents on their site www.sifex.co.uk.
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[quote user="Teamedup"]

The weather? Funny old year this year, well winter, in fact, what winter, and one I would not recommend anyone to take as being in any way normal.

[/quote]

It's been a fairly average one here TU. Of course I've not experienced quite as many as yourself but out of 5 fairly average.

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[quote user="Teamedup"]What does SOIRE mean?[/quote]

I think Bobh means 'sortie' (in it's English meaning) but chose the wrong word in French and spelt it wrong![:D] That's my guess anyway.

All those lunches sounds a bit odd, Bobh.  I have never heard of that, to that extent. It sounds like they had you in their clutches and didn't want to let you out of them.

You should really be able to view up to three houses in the morning, and the same in the afternoon, with another agent.

You'll know the ropes a bit better by the time you come back to look again.

 

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I think Bobh means 'sortie' (in it's English meaning) but chose the wrong word in French and spelt it wrong!

 That's my guess anyway.

 

ROFL, you think[:-))] I  looked it up in french and english and couldn't find anything. And for whatever reason I keep reading it in an english way ie soy er, rather than swa re. I would love to know what it was supposed to  mean.

We haven't had a winter this year. We haven't had enough rain or snow. Maybe it will come in summer, this year it would seem that anything could happen, I can certainly see us needing the rain.

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Sortie as in it's military sense, TU - like a 'mission' or a 'skirmish'. Please all army lingo experts, or indeed Bobh himself,  feel free to help me out (or you could just ignore me) here.[:)]

No real Winter here, either. I don't know whether the lack of one has an impact as great as in your area though.

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With all of the lunches, I just assumed he meant soirée. [:)] 

In our part of France we did have a winter but for only about two months, over Christmas was bitter and throughout the month of February solid rain and flooding. Now that I'm back in the UK apparently warmth and sunshine. [:(]

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On the whole France seems to have had a lot more rain than England recently, though of course it varies between areas in both countries.

You will pay heavily for the service when using that Docklands based company, although with that sort of budget it may not matter so much to you. Much better to go straight to the agent in France, you should be able to find something much better than those you describe. Unless you are familiar with house buying in France it is probably best to avoid private sales, or pay for a good 'hand holder' to help you through the process which is vastly different from that in England. If a 20,000€ restoration project goes tits up you can maybe put it down to experience, but it would be foolhardy in the extreme to take the same sort of chances with several hundred thousand.

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Welcome to the world of the French immos!

See if you can find a friendly resident Anglais who can do some of the preliminary sifting for you, so that on your next visit you will have a short list of 4-6 inspections. It's worth paying someone on site to do this - cheaper than wasted journeys!

Bonne courage, Peter

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Bob

We avidly viewed immos websites on the Internet and made frequent visits. With the vast majority, reality seemed to be different - i.e. the description and photos did not really convey what the property was like.

We found a website that handles a lot of properties for agents to be very good - www.bluehomes.com. Normally there are many photos of a property (20+ in some instances). The agents are a mix of Brits, French and Germans. I must add that our property did not come from this site, although one did come very close.

We met with some French agents who did not speak English but with our basic French and gesturing we got by.

Personally, I think we did it the right way - get out there and look on your own. By planning you can see a great number of properties. With some we went back in evenings etc to look at the area etc.

The agents will switch on to what you are looking for and try to show you what they think you want. Beware though, some will just show you anything.

It sounds as though your experience was like one of those TV programmes - we have shown you 4 properties now which one do you want to buy.

Paul

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[quote user="Teamedup"]What does SOIRE mean?[/quote]

Soiree (my machine is not set up to add accents) swahr'a.   a) private evening party esp.with music .

Believe you me, the only thing missing was the music. (As well as the singing and dancing.)

I may have mislead or been misunderstood regarding or referencing the lunches.

It just seemed that the appointments with the agents coincided with or around lunchtime. (Fortuitous or not?)

When on one or 2 occasions the immo utilised the lunchtime to set up appointments with vendors, why they couldn't have done this prior to meeting them, i dont know? Whilst others enjoyed the plat du jour with us.

Another told us to go to lunch after a 1 hour journey to keep an appointment (Grrrr)

We do intend going back to seek out a suitable property and have explained to one immo that we are only 45 mins from Stansted and ultimately only a couple of hours from the Languedoc generally to be able to come over with a couple of days notice if the need arises.

I thank those that replied with the sites of private sellers.

We are experienced in purchasing properties (in the USA) and also highly aware and yet not too happy about the enormous hikes in fees (commissions) that can accompany the negotiations. I want to avoid the following scenario if possible.

Cost of home $450,000 and the agents commission on that sale was $38,000  Thats a lot of money for very little work believe me.

If I can avoid something similar in France then a happy bunny I will be.

Everybody is entitled to a living and provididng they work hard at it and provide a sterling service they will acheive their goals, but for the others they will not get it off my back!

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I never thought that you meant soirée. You said 'our first evening out into the market place?' Accent or not, that doesn't make any sense really.

soirée=swa ray

 

Agents commission can be just as expensive in France and in my region all you get is being shown around once or twice and appointments made to sign the various documents and that IS IT. They don't do hand holding, help with utitilies or let people  ring in an emergency and yet they get the same fees, perhaps more than in regions where they do all these non estate agent things. I live in a valley in the Alpine bit of the Rhone Alps, if you are wondering. 

 

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Try this site for hundreds of private sales across France:

[url=http://www.partenaire-europeen.com]Le Partenaire-Europeen[/url]

Each property entry comes with a choice of either a Flash presentation or a downloadable pdf file showing the general property details, layout, location, nearest facilities, and generally a good range of photographs.  Many have a cadestral plan extract and a builder's floorplan included.  No sales commission is involved either, you contact the seller direct and negotiate with him.

We used this site extensively when researching types of house, areas, and prices.

 

 

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Having been in our own house for just over a month now I wanted to add my little bit!!

Before we moved over we looked at houses on the Internet, on Immo & private sites & in French magazines. It turned out, for us, to be totally useless.  Not only are some of the photos & descriptions misleading - but the location of some of the houses were so unlike what we had expected, it was scary!!

When we arrived, after organising a gite for 6 months, it took us quite a while to actually make the Immos understand what we wanted.  Our needs didn't seem too difficult.  A house needing no major re-structural work,  in a very quiet location with no main roads close by (because of the cats, of course).  We were taken to houses on the edge of motorways, houses which only had one wall still standing & even one house, which was falling down, in the middle of a town right beside the main roundabout!!

60 odd houses later we walked in here & said "Wow!".  And that was thanks to an English agent, in a French Agency who listened to us & said I think know somewhere that ticks all your boxes (except budget - but we haggled very hard & also got the Immo to drop about 1/2 of their commission fee [:D])

I would always recommend to anyone thinking of moving over, to leave the house hunting until you are here.  I think being on the ground & being able to go around the Immos is the best way to do it.  Private sales save you money - but unless you know excactly what you're doing, could prove costly in the long run. 

Our agent was worth her weight in gold, with all her help with Notaires, the owners etc. - & I think earned her money as it took a lot of the pressure of us.

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[quote user="P"]

Bob

We avidly viewed immos websites on the Internet and made frequent visits. With the vast majority, reality seemed to be different - i.e. the description and photos did not really convey what the property was like.

We found a website that handles a lot of properties for agents to be very good - www.bluehomes.com. Normally there are many photos of a property (20+ in some instances). The agents are a mix of Brits, French and Germans. I must add that our property did not come from this site, although one did come very close.

We met with some French agents who did not speak English but with our basic French and gesturing we got by.

Personally, I think we did it the right way - get out there and look on your own. By planning you can see a great number of properties. With some we went back in evenings etc to look at the area etc.

The agents will switch on to what you are looking for and try to show you what they think you want. Beware though, some will just show you anything.

It sounds as though your experience was like one of those TV programmes - we have shown you 4 properties now which one do you want to buy.

Paul

[/quote]

Thanks Paul,

Absolutely and your reference to the TV programmes really made me laugh. We didn't refuse anything because of the smelly socks or the garish wallpaper. [:D]

I do think for the most part the immos have undergone perhaps a reality bypass and did just look through the lists and come up with 2 or 3 properies in the right price range without too much thought.

We will do this, we are determined and Im sure that we will ride the learning curve and end up with the home of our dreams.

Period style character and right price with all amenities in the warm.

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bobh

Re the accents on you keyboard - Look up on the internet the ASCII character codes, then print off for future reference - eg é is obtained by holding down ALT and typing 130 [you need the numbers lock ON]

I'm sure that someone will quickly provide the appropriate link!

Peter

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what i did was set up appointments to view the properties that i had seen on the internet and had extra information about (wherever available) with both agents and private sellers. 

i was VERY clear about our budget and our requirements, eg, at least 2 bathrooms or capacity to build them.  i was most specific that we did not want to do major works.

once we got to france, we confirmed all appointments; usually with one agent or private seller in the morning and one in the afternoon.  we aimed to view between 2 to 4 houses daily.  we either went to the agent's office or met up on site or, quite often, in a prominent public place such as the local church.

we found that all the preliminary efforts, emailing, speaking on the phone, etc paid off in terms of time saved and number of properties we managed to view.

we did this about 5 or 6 times over about 2 years in different regions and at different seasons.  finally, when we struck lucky, we had viewed over 60 houses and had a good idea of what we were willing to pay for different types of property (obviously, NOT what the properties were worth, just what we wanted to pay, taking into account necessary minor works, alterations, extensions, etc)

it was altogther a VERY enjoyable experience - not really stressful at all.  and we got to see all sorts of places that we would NEVER have seen if we hadn't been househunting.

once we had viewed a property, we would give it an initial yea or nay.  then, i scored the properties we liked using a matrix that i had drawn up and, eventually, we bought the one that we thought would be the right choice.  mind you, we changed our criteria a couple of times in the course of the 2-year search and we also had to take into account a couple of glitches such as our potential purchaser for the house here pulling out 2 days before signing the contract!

i don't seem to do straightforward very well, so perhaps you should ignore completely everything i have just said!

good luck in any event

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'I think Bobh means 'sortie' (in it's English meaning) but chose the wrong word in French and spelt it wrong'

But then you got 'it's' wrong.   it's = it is.   Should be 'its' for possessive.

I do agree the only way is to go and look around.  Very odd the immo making appointments around lunch time - must be hoping to earn loads of commission from you.

We didn't even know about Grannies to help with house hunting when we bought but maybe they'd be more helpful?  I recently emailed a local immo as we are thinking of buying  another French house (instead, not as well), saying roughly what we wanted: village house, 2 or 3 bedrooms, garden etc. and she replied saying 'we only go by price'.  Considering the hefty commission, they could make more effort - it would surely save their time if they didn't show people houses they have no interest in - not to mention wasting the prospective purchaser's time.

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