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Advice on selling please


Loire
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I only half-understand the antipathy towards French estate agents (their fees seem staggering when you're used to UK levels) but many do work hard for their money having accepted a house onto their books (your experience may differ). The advantage *should* be that the immobilier does all the work from advising a good price (and if you disagree, with reason, explaining how she has come to the figure) filtering out the drunks, perverts, tyre-kickers (whatever the house-buying equivalent is) and lunatics to doing the visits and fielding the further enquiries.

Bon courage anyway!
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Thank you very much Judith and Flaneur for your advice.

Judith, if only I could find someone like your friend who sold your house! Exactly what I've been seeking for ages. Have even asked my central London estate agent and one here in Wales if they could help in any way - unfortunately not.

Regards

Loire

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More difficult when you are not on site, definitely, Loire.  I presume the house is not in my neck of the woods ... keep your pecker up, we despaired too, sometimes, but some of it was price, and also finding the right buyer .. if the two match, that's when it works.  It's finding the match which is difficult.

Yes, Flaneur, estate agents do their best to avoid the time wasters ... though not always, but it seems to be that stimulating them to work for you is the problem.  If they do a good job no-one minds paying them, it's when they do nothing that its so annoying.

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When we were selling, due to this board, we tried all sorts of things that did not work and in fact, some things cost us money.

In the end we went in to see the local estate agents and spoke to a friend who used one of them to rent an appt they had and were happy with them, so we went with them. I negociated how much they would charge buyers, as I considered that they were asking too much.

They found us a buyer.

We had to bring our price down by about 12% in the end.

Took us about 18 months to sell, pre crash in 2007, we could have sold our home, but heyho, that is quite another story.

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[quote user="nomoss"]


Maybe it's to do with the region we live in, but when my phone number was available I received calls at all sorts of inconvenient times, some with background noise making it impossible to understand, and others from people who mumbled incoherently or couldn't even string their words together in a coherent manner.

[/quote]

 

That is standard here!

 

The Muppets are easily dealt with by repeatedly asking the same question, "what is it that you are asking of me?" eventually they just throw a few insults and hang up, it may sound harsh but they are not capable of asking for what they want, just to make disparaging comments and euuhs and expect capitulation.

I get exactly he same with customers that make bookings and then want to cancel except they are beyond the time limit for cancellations, for some bizaare reason most seem to claim they thought that we were on the coast at St Valerie sur Somme and then keep repeating that we are a long way from the see n'est ce pas? I just keep repeating what is it that they want from me? I know where we are because I live here, you surely did not phone me to tell me how far we are from the sea, what is it that you want?

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Thanks very much idun and everyone else. As you say idun, a lot can be spent on net sites for the adverts. I've spent quite a few hundred, plus an inordinate amount of time and energy.

Hope to have time to make a decision on way forward by the end of the week/beg of next. Still no word from A about Sat morn's viewing. Don't feel very inclined to contact him until I've decided my way forward, which hopefully won't include him, and I shouldn't think there's any chance it went well or I would have heard by now!

Regards

Loire

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  • 5 months later...
We have just met with Leggit, they are through France and have numerous avenues to expose property throughout Europe and the World. havent used them before, wondering if anyone else has had any expeirence of them when selling or buying.

I would give them a go, of course there are fees to be paid but, if you want to sell in Framce you have use those that can get your property under the noses that really wish to buy.

Best of luck.

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Fourbarewalls wrote while taking of Leggits :

I would give them a go, of course there are fees to be paid but, if you want to sell in Framce you have use those that can get your property under the noses that really wish to buy.

Having taken our daughter to a regional airport to catch her flight back to the UK I came across a glossy Leggets property magazine. Gosh the weight and glossiness of it .. no wonder their selling fees (paid for by the purchaser natch) are so very high.

They also seem to inflate selling prices, which added to their high selling fees, make the selling price of the property outrageously high .. compared with French agents.

They say they win awards for service .. I'm sure they do.
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We sold our house this year with Leggets. They performed much better than the French agents, the price asked was the same with both. We controlled the sale price, not the agents. The price FAI was the near enough the same too. We paid the fees. Under the new system (as I understand it), the price shown is the price the buyers pay. We, the sellers, then paid the agents fee out of the final sum. There were no other agents fees to pay. The Notaires fees were based on the final selling price. A ruse, I believe, so the government get more taxes from the sale.
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Surely this business of vendors ‘paying’ the agent’s fees is a smoke and mirrors trick to make the buyer think they are paying less?

All that has happened is that the asking price has been dropped by the amount of the agent’s fee.

What happens to the TVA in that case, if it is payable on agent’s fees?

As far as I know, it is a purely informal arrangement.

It would be much better is the agent’s fees were set at a decent level rather than than the obscene levels of today.

By the way, what do Leggett charge, I have heard 7%?

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Wooly wrote : By the way, what do Leggett charge, I have heard 7%?

I did find a chart but for the moment I can't put my finger on it but looking at some of the adverts in the magazine.

Under 100K€ they are around 10% .. so for a property at 89 999€ the fees were 10 000€ .. so a selling price of 99 999€.

Over 100 000€ then 9%; over 150 000€ then 8%.

Property at over 600 000€ the fees were 6% .. so a 630 000€ property was up at 667 800€

Property around a million then you only pay 5% ?

Edit : But to be fair it does seem to vary a bit depending on something or other but I can't fathom what.

A house in Indre, for sale at 149 800€, had fees of 7% .. but it was on a road.

The one a short way away in Indre was 105 000€ plus 9% fees .. so an sp of 114 450€ .. but it had a nice garden.

All plus the usual Notaire fees.
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I don't know if I've mentioned this before, but we had a very charismatic immo from a local french company who found the ideal buyer for our house.

We had been on and off for years, he had got to know us with our doubts and changes of mind. But kept plodding on and finally got his commission.

He was a good friend too.

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Probably, you can contact a real estate broker where you can get some assistance in selling. As I know, you just advertise your house for sale on their platform. Some experts work on different types of property in France https://tranio.com/france/.

Many companies work without any additional price for the customers: if you buy your property through them, the price for you would be exactly the same as the one made if you contacted their foreign partner directly. I think it's worth a try.
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  • 1 month later...
Good afternoon everyone

Can anyone tell me please what sort of arrangements Leggetts have with their agent they allocate to you re selling a house/? Does the allocated agent work from an agency building, take calls etc or do they work at a distance and someone else take the enquiries and pass on to the allocated agent details of anyone who wants a viewing for the allocated agent to do the viewing?Are the allocated agents employed by Leggetts or self employed? Does noone else do anything re selling the house/ taking enquiries etc when the allocated agent is away from work, which could be very frequently?

Kind regards

Loire

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The agents are self-employed and work from home.Most are British expats.Some are excellent and others are useless and unhelpful. They arrange the viewings in their local area.

The Leggett head office works alongside the agents and I believe they keep records of all contacts - so there should be someone available to talk to by phone or email if the agent is unavailable.

Be aware that they tend to start off by overpricing the properties but then discount the price as they go along. I know of one house in Centre that started at about 120,000 euros then sold three years later for less than 40,000 euros.
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Meek Megan wrote : Be aware that they tend to start off by overpricing the properties but then discount the price as they go along. I know of one house in Centre that started at about 120,000 euros then sold three years later for less than 40,000 euros.

Plus their % fees are eye-wateringly expensive .. up to twice what a normal agent would charge.
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Thank you very much Meek Megan. That is very helpful indeed and confirms what I suspected.

Hardly ever any contact, that there is I have instigated and just extremely vague replies, recently  blaming Brexit, tho that wouldn't impact on potential French buyers, every time I contact is away on some jaunt or other, will contact when back and has never referred me to anyone else. I hope potential buyers have had more luck contacting them and being offered viewings!

Advised to reduce price, which I did ( I had said at the outset the price was too high) and seems to have had no effect whatsever.The fact that the price quoted on their ads includes their commission, which I will pay, might at first glance put off potential buyers who might think they have to pay the charges on top of that price, though looking further into ad say it will be paid by seller. Think that in six mnths there hasn't been one viewing,  and have made clear I want details of all interest/viewings etc  now. Took three mnths from when I asked them to take it on to it going on their website, agent's long holiday took part of that time. Have now lost chance of the best selling period - summer when house and garden can be seen at best advantage.Shall see what reply I get to interest there's been/viewings etc.

Kind regards

Loire

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