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who's the number 1 agency in France?


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The latest figures I have are: Century 21 (950), Era (395), Guy Hocquet (600+), Laforet (800) and Orpi (1,400+). Note that Orpi is a co-operative and the remainder largely franchise operations involving independent local agencies.

As already suggested, I see no particular merit in using a national network - the buyer in Paris does not walk into a local branch to buy a property in Lyon. He visits the region first, then looks around locally.

At the local level, as happened in the UK when banks bought up old established local estate agencies (and lost money and re-sold them to their former owners), some of the franchises are losing business against locally established firms, often of long standing. This is because the locals (vendors) do not feel 'comfortable' with the new arrivals, and new staff, parachuted in from outside the region (as happened in the UK), don't know the local territory and market, so flounder a bit, which is not in the best interests of the client.

I would recommend you go with a good local agency in your area.

Peter-Danton de ROUFFIGNAC MA LLM www.francemedproperty.blogspot.com

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  • 3 weeks later...

Surely each area has dynamic estate agents and those who live in the "DARK AGES".

When I sold in Brittany...I sold the house myself....all the agents gave me quotes and I got almost double the price.

I did have ideas for marketing the property and got close to 100 replies from many countries.

So just me and the notaire.....

 

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From a Internet point of view personally I would use www.google.fr (not .com or .co.uk) and type in Immobilier and see what comes up. If you want to go region specific then add your region to the end (in your case Immobilier Drome). You really should be interested in the first page of search results but anything up to and including the fourth page will be OK as not many look beyond that. A quick search seems to show a lot for sale in your neck of the woods.
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I've been using Logic-Immo recently, it seems to be a bit like Rightmove, in that it has adverts from lots of different agents all in one place.

http://www.logic-immo.com/

They also have an iPhone app.

The only thing I have noticed, tho, is that if you search by Departement, you don't always get all the results, as I've found properties when searching by specific commune that haven't appeared in the larger, Dep search.

a

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[quote user="jon"]

When I sold in Brittany...I sold the house myself....all the agents gave me quotes and I got almost double the price.

...got close to 100 replies from many countries.

[/quote]

So that answers the question. Jon is the number one agent in France. As well as the number one restaurateur and hotelier. Is there no end to this person's talents?

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[quote user="Will"][quote user="jon"]

When I sold in Brittany...I sold the house myself....all the agents gave me quotes and I got almost double the price.

...got close to 100 replies from many countries.

[/quote]

So that answers the question. Jon is the number one agent in France. As well as the number one restaurateur and hotelier. Is there no end to this person's talents?

[/quote]

You see you professionals that flog houses obviously don't have a clue. Personally I have saved Jon's details so that when the time comes to sell I will ask him/her to do it for me. At double the price I could be a millionaire [;-)] .

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We are currently buying a house in the Haute Vienne through a property agent, he is English but based in France. We are paying an all inclusive price and this will include help with utiliities, insurance and basically anything we want help with. Of course he is liasing with the notaire and the sellers (all French of course) which I'd say was invaluable, unless you have a good command of the language.

It's great to have John at the end of the phone or by email.
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We are using Green Acres to sell our house and have found that they have provided us with many leads at a small outlay cost to us! They always come up in the first one or two when you search on-line for French houses for sale. Also your house is on there until you sell and the advert does not expire like on some of the other sites! I think at the end of the day it depends if you price your house competitively as to whether people are interested! The fees estate agents would charge buyers, they tend to load on top of the house price and then say there are no fees! Also with estate agents in France you can be tied into sole agency or a lengthy time before you can take your property off their books! Also if you do sell privately (say to friends) in this time regardless to whether they introduced the buyers or not, they will still be allowed to charge you their commission and that is much heftier than UK estate agents!

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