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Bought a house in Normandy when prices were high seven years ago at 75,000 euros. Some inevitable deterioration since then in condition of property (little used). Just received offer of 30,000 euros. Inclined to accept as market seems so slow. Do others agree this seems a sensible decision (taking value of euro into account, will be selling at approx half of purchase price in UK sterling terms) or...? Would value hearing of others' recent experiences in this regard.
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I would take what ever you can get.

Down here the market is collapsing, or rather the real 'French' prices are being re-established now that the 'Place in the Sun' victims are no longer in evidence.

  I visited a house in January which was at 69,000, and didn't dare offer below 50,000.

An offer of 40,000 has just been accepted!

However that is in Midi Pyrénées so it may not be the same where you are.

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And if you are not looking after the property then will it 'go up' in value?

If you want more money, hold out, if not, sell. Old properties in France have no defining price. It would depend where, the state, employment in the region etc etc. Because 'where' in a region, can vary enormously, even a few kms apart.

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I can't see the market picking up any time soon, and there is certainly a lot of property available. It might be worth having a look on leboncoin for your area to see what prices are like and how many properties are added every day.
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Thanks very much to you all for your comments - I'm really grateful. Sad to be selling in some ways but needs must! Once sold, of course (hoping it goes through), won't have the overheads or the concerns from a distance. Think I'll be wise to accept the offer on the table.
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We have a second home in southern Manche and have seen prices drop very markedly in the last few years and the market is also very slow. Friends who sold a nicely renovated little house last year thought themselves lucky to get just over 50,000 euros, quite a lot less than it had cost them overall.

I think it depends on how strongly you want to sell. At least you won't have any further outgoings if you accept the offer.
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Whilst accepting everything that has been said, that offer is the potential buyer's 1st 'punt'?

If it was me, I'd respond with "Not a euro below 40k".

They might walk away, but they just might meet you halfway.

Worth the risk perhaps?
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[quote user="NormanH"]I would take what ever you can get.
Down here the market is collapsing, or rather the real 'French' prices are being re-established now that the 'Place in the Sun' victims are no longer in evidence.
  I visited a house in January which was at 69,000, and didn't dare offer below 50,000.
An offer of 40,000 has just been accepted!
However that is in Midi Pyrénées so it may not be the same where you are.
[/quote]

I'd go with Norman's sentiments.

I shall recount my own experience and hope that the OP will find it some sort of parallel experience and, no, I can't say it's an identical situation as it's in a different area altogether and in a different price bracket.

We bought in 2006 and, for those heady times, did not pay over the odds.  It was renovated but a shell nonetheless.  After  adding, a fosse, electricity, water, installing a telephone post and internet access, creating 2 outdoor terraces, building a garden house, stabilising the walls of a ruin and other odds and sods, we spent about 40k euros.

Now we have accepted an offer for exactly the amount we paid so, in effect, we have "lost" 40k euros.  However, taking into account the exchange rates at that time and at the present time, we have just about broken even or maybe lost a "mere" few grand.

We are lucky in many respects.  The young people buying have family near them and they both have been able to relocate their jobs, one of them working for a nationwide company and the other is in the public sector.  Therefore, our house had "added value" for this particular couple.

The other thing you might like to consider is this:  if you HAD put the money into any sort of savings account, you would still, with inflation, virtually zero interest rates and the dire climate for people with savings over the last 5 or 6 years, not have added to your "pot" of money and would still be considerably down.

Actually, it hadn't worked out so badly to have kept money in property.  OK maybe not property in France but, even so, I think that once you have done the math (as the Americans would say), I think you'd find that your offer is not something you want to turn your nose up at without some realistic thinking and calculation.

Good luck with the sale, BTW!

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Thanks for all further comments. The great thing about this forum is how helpful folks are to each other. All your input has consolidated my initial thoughts and have accepted the offer. Now hope the sale will proceed - did discuss with the agent whether it was worth holding out for even a little more but don't want to jeopardise a sale in such a difficult market. Fingers firmly crossed...
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History seems to show that when there is a public consensus about market conditions, that's the time to go against the trend. Small investors lose out time and again by buying at the top of a market and selling when things appear bleak. Conversely, there are those who make their fortunes by spotting opportunities.

Residential property might not be quite the same as stocks and shares - and the point about maintenance cost is well made - but similar factors apply.

A lot of UK retirees are going to have unexpected access to sizeable lump sums from pension plans under new rules announced by George Osborne. That is expected to inflate British house prices as some of this cash finds its way into property investment. I wonder how many might be tempted to pick up "cheap" holiday homes across the Channel, giving the French market a boost.
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But that was always the case. Years ago when the british started looking into France, there were properties in France that were very cheap and very good economic reasons for this. These were all over the place, but not usually where I lived....... and I have to add, that is apart from those places where the people from 'my' region did not want to live, because no matter where one lives, there are always places that are undesirable. And these places still remain cheaper than the rest of 'my' region.

As far as I could gather, the cheap french prices in other regions of France were taken by british/dutch/german buyers as some sort of  french ignorance of the 'real' value of what they had. Ofcourse, that changed, but it has to be said that previously the french could never ask 'more', as these regions were being deserted by the young and were dying and there was no one to buy. Naturally market forces bumped up prices, some by far far too much. 

So who will buy when the british expat retraité want to sell, well by the marvels of IMO the imbecile of a Chancellor, then probably with their pension pot, probably more british expat retraité. How long this can last, I have no idea.

There are things here that feel very very wrong to me, just like the housing market in the UK which for me stinks to high heaven.

Nice to see you post Cassis, hope you are well!

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Of course, I don't know the Orne as well as Cassis or fran.

What I do find strange is how, even in one small area of a département, never mind a région, there are substantial differences between towns and villages that might only be a few miles apart.

For example, Bagnoles de l'Orne is highly desirable with its beautiful lake, its golf course, its casino, its restaurants and bars etc and la Ferte Macé (please excuse spellings because it's a fair few years since I was there) although a bigger and busier town, just doesn't have the same cachet.

We have the same here where I am living.  Our little village is full of buzz (well, as much buzz as a village of 400 odd people can be), pretty as a picture, orderly and well-kept whilst there are many villages of similar size that, even in the eyes of the locals, are just not so desirable to live in.

We have la félibrée, the Occitan festival, this year near us and our village is said to be "très fort" in terms of the amount of flowers we are making for the festival.  Some villages are not contributing any local effort at all.

Up to last year, we weren't even in the communauté; we were entirely independent, including having control of our own finances.  Now we are just one of 46 communes so it remains to be seen whether we will lose some of that air of being at the same time peaceful but active.

 

 

 

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One of the biggest issues we have found by speaking to neighbours in the Orne is the access to potential employment. We have lived in 2 communes in the same area, one which had easy access to 3 or 4 main towns, one a bit more remote (but not much in UK terms). Building land in the first commune commanded 20-25 euros per m2, in the second it is priced at 5-7 euros per m2.

I also think that nowadays the easy access to internet is quite a big price-influencing factor.

I would imagine that in the Alencon area, job prospects are greater than out here, so property prices reflect this.
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In the Alpes, the desirablity of some of it had to do with the weather too. Also historic industry and then all too often, lack of it.

There are places that just have a bad name and sometimes  too many HLM's are put up and unfortunately as the very name indicates, these people are poorer and the whole 'social' game comes into play. Young teachers forced to work there who get out as soon as they can, so 'equal' education for all suffers. Poor education, lack of qualifications and the terrible unemployment etc etc, even in rural France.

A friend of mine happily moved into somewhere that was literally dirt cheap, I say that as it had a dirt floor when she moved in. She did it up, and moved on, not wanting her kids to go to the local schools where no one expected anyone to come to much. She got a shock in her next  home as the schools were like night and day and certainly 'expected' the kids to succeed.

I suppose that many french people just know these things, they are brought up with them. As incomers, how would we? We were lucky, people at work would say, don't go here or there, even though the prices looked as if we could only afford X or Y, whereas everywhere else seemed horribly expensive. I got to know people who moved to places we were told not to move to, ignored good counsel and I was always glad we took notice. They would always try and sell it to us, ie I have a really big house and/or an acre or two of land etc.......... well, why would I want that? sounds like a lot of work to me, even a big house, to maintain and heat and a long way from work to boot. One's outgoings always count at some point.

So prices, well, I would say that many parts of France are probably still overpriced, even now. But my they are in the UK, it really does disgust and disturb me.

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Idun, many thanks for your comments which are spot on.

The English expression "horses for courses" in terms of prices springs to mind.

Sorry, but I'm going to be political. House prices do follow where the jobs are and variations are really the same in both France and the UK. Whilst both countries are governed by the monied "elite" then we will continue to see the absurd price differences which are really not justified when considering the power of the internet nowadays.

Why on earth would people want to live in the London/Paris conurbations otherwise.  Rural living nowadays is only an hour or two from these centres if there is an absolutely necessary need for face to face meetings. Big cities should really be for tourists.. Big company headquarters should be spread throughout the UK (except Scotland of course)

Really being contentious, monied foreign immigrants may like the idea of living throughout the UK if there was less concentration in London/Paris  .

To the opening post - if you have no use for it, then its really an investment and sometimes you have to just accept your losses, or accept that there has not been a profit.

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Talking about London - if you look at Government policy for the past 40-50 years, there have been determined efforts to encourage business to move out of the honey pot of London and the South East. This policy, however, has met with varying degrees of success. At the end of the day, regardless of what incentives are on offer, if a firm wishes to locate in the honey pot area and finds premises, there is precious little a Government can do about it short of imposing Soviet-like controls over the economy......and we know how successful that was.
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Thibault, there was a recent 2-programme offering on the BBC with Evan Davies (very good presenter IMO) called "The Gap" or something like that and the programmes address precisely what you are talking about.

The gap referred to is the massive gap between London and other UK cities such as Manchester, Liverpool, etc and how unbridgeable that gap appears to be.  Skewed economic performance and skewed house prices.

He also gave quite detailed analysis of how this gap has arisen but, like most media pundits, he has few suggestions as to how to narrow this gap [:)]

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The Gap was an interesting program and has provoked a deal of discussion on what can be done. It would appear that because London is so much larger than its UK rivals there is little if anything that can be done in the short term to change the situation. One creative solution was to improve commuter services between Manchester and Leeds/Bradford with the aim of creating an economic counterweight to London but that if it worked would be a long term solution. Our politicians seem unable to take a view beyond the next parliament so I doubt if anything will happen.
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I agree that London and Paris are exceptions.

BUT, for the rest of the country in both countries, then the banks have a lot to answer for. At least in France the official criteria was no more than a third of income on all loans/rent, it kept the housing market within reasonable limits.

The UK, well, I'll not get started. I have probably had more 'discussions' which could have degenerated into full grown vehement arguments. But did not as I would bite my tongue that hard that if I had not been figuratively doing it, but really, then my tongue would be missing a great lump. IF my friends could see what I was thinking, they  would be shocked, but them still in the mind set of one of the most completely immoral things I can personally think of, ie housing being unaffordable for so many of the young in this day and age, saddens and disappoints me beyond words.

Would I be like them if I had been there for the Thatcher years? I don't know, I was always contrary and odd, so maybe not, I would like to think that I wouldn't, but maybe that is being over hopeful![:(]

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Well, Id, I will try to describe to you what I find really, really find difficult to accept.

Council house tenants that have paid rent that were far below private rents who then could buy their houses for next to nothing, thereby gaining tens or even hundreds of thousands overnight.  And don't tell me that they didn't profit by selling on their council houses because, of course, they did.  Especially for people around the M25 area who could sell up and buy larger and better houses in the countryside.  After all, they haven't saved and grafted for this wonderful windfall, have they?

Then the government, after selling off council houses, started paying rent to private landlords for all those people who were housed by public funds.  What is that other than shifting money and capital from the public sector to the private?  Who benefited other than private landlords who were borrowing money to build up a portfolio of houses and who paid their mortgages for those portfolios of houses but the taxpayer via the rents they were charging to housing benefit claimants?

You are right, it all stinks and all just to buy votes [6][+o(]

Edit:  I forgot to say that being able to buy your council house at a fraction of its real value in an expensive part of the country is actually better than winning the lottery because you don't even have to buy a ticket.

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