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Carcassonne and Albi


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I am going out to France to stay with a friend and look for a property between Carcassonne and Albi. Does anyone live in this area/can recommend estate agents, builders etc? I am wary of using english agencies as I feel the prices are put up as soon as locals know you are british. Am I right or paranoid?
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Hi Karen

Why realfood?

We bought a house this year in Deux-Svres, near to Bressuire and not far from la Vende border. We spent 10 days on the house hunting trip from Dec 27th in the cold and rain so that we saw the properties and locations at their worst. We looked at houses owned by French people being sold by French agents, houses being sold by English people directly and houses being sold by an English agent through an intermediary in the UK. Our conclusions were that English vendors wanted more than their houses were worth to us and were not prepared to negotiate. The English agent whilst very pleasant didn't listen to our requirements and showed us expensive rubbish. The French agents all seemed willing to volunteer the fact that we could knock the prices down. We bought from a French agent who spoke excellent English, wasn't in the slightest bit pushy and in the event gave us almost three whole days without showing the slightest impatience. We went back to the house we bought three times. Other French agents were equally accommodating.

I hope this is of help even though it has nothing to do with Carcassonne.
Regards

Roger
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I bought through a local agent in the Lot. He speaks less English than I speak French (which isn't saying much) but I used Oui Can Help when I got stuck. We had Bernard on the speakerphone in the agent's office, and it all went swimmingly.

One thing to watch...my house was on with 2 agents, with a price difference of 100,000F. Fortunately I saw it with the cheaper one. It was only a couple of days later that I spotted "my house" in the agent in Cahors, at the greater price. Needless to say I felt very smug, but it could easily have happened the other way around.

Good luck with your search; Albi is lovely, and so are those cheap flights to Carcassonne!

Caroline.
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We spent all of this year looking for and finally buying,
a house in the Mazamet/Castres area. We took advice from books and did not just walk in to immobiliers, but e-mailed and phoned them from the UK etc. This was a complete flop as they (understandably) only wanted to take you round what was available on the day, so we then went back for a viewing trip. We then found that, having made appointmetns, they would have lined up 5 or 6 houses for us to see, but they often had the same properties available and so we would have to say we had already seen this or that one with someone else, which didn't help!. (Despite this, they were always unfailingly polite and helpful.) After this rather false start, we began just walking in off the street and got the best results that way. Have to say that some of the English agents we tried, tried to show us enormous and v. expensive properties......
One thing we did find was that, being not too distant from Toulouse, this area was quite expensive for houses not too far from the main routes. But had we wanted to be more rural, we could have paid less. If you are likely to be looking in this actual area, do e-mail me direct and I will pass on what we know.
Regards
Chrissie
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