Rainy Day

It's nice to see French properties better represented online at last. Even nicer is that some parts of France don't seem to have been caught up in the housing bubble, at least not to the same degree at London, California and other bubble places. I've seen some beautiful homes in Charente Maritime, Dordogne, Normandy and other places. Is anyone actively looking in these, or other areas at the moment? What has been your experience of agents etc? What website are you using, and are the homes you visit what you expected?

fidobsa

I was in Limousin in September. To be honest, the sheaf of details printed from the internet was largely ignored when I was actually in France. I tended to just go into Immmobilier offices and ask for a maison avec grange, which was what I was mainly looking for. The main agent I had seen online was Sextant but I didn't contact them as I was having problems with phone calls and getting internet access. I found the phone boxes usually only take cards. I bought a card but never managed to get it to work.
The agents usually drove me to the properties but a couple of times I was asked to follow them (usually at breakneck speed) in my van, as they were going on somewhere else afterward. In a couple of cases I asked if I could go on my own to see some houses and they gave me the addresses, after I signed a bon de visite. I have Europe cover in my Garmin satnav and it worked quite well so I managed to find most of them.
One thing I found was different to UK, although things may have changed here also. I was on my own and I gather they don't send out a female agent with a man on his own. There was always either two women or one man who went with me to look at property. In a couple of cases that meant leaving the young lady who spoke English in the office whilst her older male boss who did not speak English would show me the properties.
In terms of offering advice and being able to answer my questions the two best agents I found were Square Habitat and Cendrillon, both in Bouganeuf.

Ka Ora!

The French housing market is a very different beast, Outside of the Metropolitan "Big Town and Cities" areas people don't move from property to property half as much. Folk spend longer in homes, Renovation for big profits doesn't happen as much as the French prefer to build a new house and get shot of the old heap to the mad foreigners.

dennerlymum

having just had an offer accepted on an old heap last week I know what you mean; the property had been on the market for over a year with not one single offer and the agent was visibly relieved to realise that we were English and thus mad enough to possibly put in an offer.

However I think the thing that prevents most french moving around as much as the English is the ENORMOUS cost of moving! All told on a reasonably priced house for the area, our costs will be around 25,000 euros for agents and notaires, and that was after a significant reduction in fees by the agent!!!!

In the uk we moved many times to houses at around the same price and we usually reckoned that a generous 10,000 pounds would see us right!

swayo

Hello
You should also know that it is not easy to an owner to sell property of any kind in France, especially at this time. This market is extremely locked by the agencies that expect a more favorable context for character goods and selling property directly is tricky. In today's environment agents may prefer to delay the sale by the time the property market rises. I have for example the parents of my wife who have chosen a very bad time to sell their property in the village of a seaside village They sell this house of 1000 square meters of living space for a very reasonable price but real estate firms do do anything if you do not sign their exclusivity to increase their hold on customers.

fidobsa

I think if trying to sell a house in France I would put it with a Notaire and make up my own classified ad. for Ebay.fr. If it was the sort of place that might appeal to Brits or Germans I would also advertise on UK and German Ebay.

Ka Ora!

I always try to avoid agents, They don't work for their money here. IMHO your better to reduce the price a little "Remove the Agents Cut" And private sale it. It's not like they go to Estate Agent School or anything.

Rainy Day

Thanks for all the responses. I used a UK agent in the south, who had a good website with a smattering of properties, but recently I've noticed Rightmove and Primelocation have quite a few international listings, and better information than the one photo of yesteryear. Some of the homes I've seen are not heaps, but fully modernised, ready-to-move-in properties, often with land, river-fronted, majestic architecture and so on. The temptation to pack my bags, and leave California where homes–in spite of the massive downturn–are still 20% above the historic mean, and move to France is sometimes over-whelming. And this is just based on the better value I see in the areas I mentioned above.

Before we pop over for a visit to check some of these places out, what concerns me is that some of these places may be very rural, and since you are not given addresses online there's no way of knowing, without trying to get answers from brokers, who never respond to international queries. I am a Brit and have lived in France before, and am familiar with the grass is greener arguments, but does anyone else from Bubbledom have the same reaction to home prices in France?

Ka Ora!

It's not the fact that your in the States, You need a Agent to reply to you in these parts you need to be in the same room as them. Surly the ad's you have seen give a town or village name?

Having had a lot of USA experience as well, Thing is each countries ideals and lifestyle offerings are for normal folk miles away from each other I see France as more of a "not scared to get dirty salt of the earth traditional type" lifestyle And the States is a lot more "consumer driven throw it out when the Mk 2 goes on sale" lifestyle.

IMHO Basically each country offers a fundamentally different lifestyle choice.

cyrian

Hi
There is more to moving to France than the house prices.
I see that you have lived in France before but it may have changed since then.
I would search thro the forum for threads discussing "moving to France/****"
The arguments have been gone over before.
I have some US friends who just don't know how anybody can afford to live in the UK/France because of the retail prices and taxation.
Remember France will tax you on your world-wide assets if they exceed
~ E750k.
Happy hunting

Rainy Day

Yep, as I said I have lived there before, and in a few other countries, so am familiar with the usual types of issues. Thanks for the reminder though. You are correct in one sense that a home alone is not a reason to move, but then we're not exactly living in normal times. The US housing market practically brought the world economy to it's knees, and things are still not quite what you might expect. There are other reasons for a move, not least, France offers a fantastic life style. The debates go round and round, but it usually comes down to the basics.

Tweedpipe

And as many strikes and mass public demonstrations per year as there are french cheeses...........
As they say there are at least 365 cheeses in France, so that seems about right.

Rainy Day

I'm sorry if I offended you by asking if you were an agent, but sending a Private Message with a link to a property for sale is what a lot of agents do. Aside from that I didn't express any objection anyway.

Rainy Day

Which is presumably why you are not living there, but posting on a France forum?

Rainy Day

Hehe! You probably do have to be in the same room. Yes, villages, or towns are mentioned, but the property could be located a few miles outside. One of the most useful features of online listings is google maps virtual drive-bys, which can tell you quite a lot about the immediate environment. I'm not sure how extensively google has mapped out France, but these kinds of things are useful tools for buyers.