Trevor Appleton

Is there a suitable newsgroup for anyone interested in buying a second home
in France or relocating there? I haven't managed to find anything relevant.

Yves Bellefeuille

On Sun, 16 Jan 2005, Trevor Appleton wrote:

    > Is there a suitable newsgroup for anyone interested in buying a second home
    > in France or relocating there? I haven't managed to find anything relevant.

fr.petites-annonces.immobilier ("fr.ads.real-estate") seems relevant.

It's apparently extremely unusual to sell a house privately in France;
everybody uses an agent.

Yves Bellefeuille
<[email protected]>

Ta

Thanks very much, I'll give it a try, but I don't speak much french ( yet )
and that sounds awfully French!



<[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
    > On Sun, 16 Jan 2005, Trevor Appleton wrote:
    >> Is there a suitable newsgroup for anyone interested in buying a second
    >> home
    >> in France or relocating there? I haven't managed to find anything
    >> relevant.
    > fr.petites-annonces.immobilier ("fr.ads.real-estate") seems relevant.
    > It's apparently extremely unusual to sell a house privately in France;
    > everybody uses an agent.
    > Yves Bellefeuille
    > <[email protected]>
    >

R@L

"TA" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
    > Thanks very much, I'll give it a try, but I don't speak much french (
    > yet ) and that sounds awfully French!
    > <[email protected]> wrote in message
    > news:[email protected]...
    >> On Sun, 16 Jan 2005, Trevor Appleton wrote:
    >>> Is there a suitable newsgroup for anyone interested in buying a second
    >>> home
    >>> in France or relocating there? I haven't managed to find anything
    >>> relevant.
    >> fr.petites-annonces.immobilier ("fr.ads.real-estate") seems relevant.
    >> It's apparently extremely unusual to sell a house privately in France;
    >> everybody uses an agent.
    >> Yves Bellefeuille
    >> <[email protected]>

In 2002 I bought a house in Italy -I am from The Netherlands- and I went
looking three times for some weeks to find out where I would like it to be.
Once I had established the region I started looking for website of agents in
the region. That gave me plenty of choice to start mailing from home.
While not many spoke English some were more than helpful.

Good luck!

Ronald
www.mulazzo.nl

Ta

thanks for the encouragement. I know the area - the Auvergne - and I'm
booked for a week in May, so let the search begin!

Nightjar

"Trevor Appleton" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
    > Is there a suitable newsgroup for anyone interested in buying a second
    > home in France or relocating there? I haven't managed to find anything
    > relevant.

I don't think there is. Living France magazine is probably the best source
and they also have a useful web site:

http://www.livingfrance.com/

My experience is that the best way to find a house is to travel to the area
and then to visit local estate agents. There are UK based companies that
advertise for French estate agents, but communications between France and
the UK is patchy at best. If you arrange a meeting through one of these
companies, the chances are that the estate agent will not have been told
what property you have shown interest in, or if they have, it was probably
sold a couple of months before you enquired.

Unless you are relocating permanently, I would advise thinking very
carefully about whether or not to have a swimming pool. Salt water ones need
less maintenance, but are also rather uncommon. The chlorine based pools
need chemical dosing every week. Both need regular maintenance of the
filters and usually a pool cleaning robot.

Colin Bignell

Daniel Masse

Yves Bellefeuille wrote:
    > It's apparently extremely unusual to sell a house privately in France;
    > everybody uses an agent.

I have to desagree with that statement... According to statistics, more than
half the appartment/house sales are direct sales. The reason : agencies
fees...

R J Carpenter

"TA" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
    > thanks for the encouragement. I know the area - the Auvergne - and
I'm
    > booked for a week in May, so let the search begin!

If I understand things, the buyer pays the estate agent fee in France.
At least in the USA it is the seller who pays the commission.

Can anyone confirm?

Padraig Breathnach

"R J Carpenter" <[email protected]> wrote:

    >"TA" <[email protected]> wrote in message
    >news:[email protected]...
    >> thanks for the encouragement. I know the area - the Auvergne - and
    >I'm
    >> booked for a week in May, so let the search begin!
    >If I understand things, the buyer pays the estate agent fee in France.
    >At least in the USA it is the seller who pays the commission.
    >Can anyone confirm?
In one sense, it doesn't matter. The money comes out of the buyer's
pocket. If, as a buyer, I expect to pay commission, then I adjust my
price offer accordingly.

From what I have seen of the French property market (as a casual
spectator rather than a participant) the price quoted by estate
agencies (US: realtors) includes taxes and commissions.

--
PB
The return address has been MUNGED

Szozu

"R J Carpenter" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
    > "TA" <[email protected]> wrote in message
    > news:[email protected]...
    > > thanks for the encouragement. I know the area - the Auvergne - and
    > I'm
    > > booked for a week in May, so let the search begin!
    > If I understand things, the buyer pays the estate agent fee in France.
    > At least in the USA it is the seller who pays the commission.
    > Can anyone confirm?

I have bought three apartments in France. The price you see is the price you
pay. The fees are already included, however, there are fees paid to the
notaire on top of that. The notaire is the person who handles property sales
in France and not lawyers as in the US. If the owner is selling the property
directly, he will usually do it to save on agency fees and pocket the
difference himself for the trouble and aggravation involved, so generally
the price will not be much different.

For good information on every aspect of life in France, see
http://www.angloinfo.com/ and be sure to also read the forums. Though Anglo
Info currently specializes in the Riviera, Brittany and Normandy, much of
the information applies to all of France.

Lana

Parisphoto 2000

Go to this site for ads by owners: http://www.pap.fr/

By not dealing with a real estate agency you'll save about 5% right
off the top. The hard part is that you need someone on the ground
who'll visit the properties you're interested in.
Don

Paris guides, Travelogues, photos:
http://www.visitparis.com

Nightjar

"R J Carpenter" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
...
    > If I understand things, the buyer pays the estate agent fee in France.
    > At least in the USA it is the seller who pays the commission.
    > Can anyone confirm?

You can arrange it either way. If the buyer pays the estate agent, it is not
counted as part of the sale price, which saves a bit of tax.

Colin Bignell

Utilisateur1

Try Franglo.com
([email protected])
or buy an IGN map (100 000) select the area, towns and villages you like
and go to the Yellow pages and select sollicitors (notaires)
some are speaking english and are using the net. but start learning
french..(so many english people are settling there (some are staying being
integrated b'cause they speak french or try ...the other after a while are
leaving whatever the beauty of their house or of the village they settled
in.)
"R@L" <[email protected]> a écrit dans le message de news:
[email protected]...
    > "TA" <[email protected]> wrote in message
    > news:[email protected]...
    >> Thanks very much, I'll give it a try, but I don't speak much french (
    >> yet ) and that sounds awfully French!
    >> <[email protected]> wrote in message
    >> news:[email protected]...
    >>> On Sun, 16 Jan 2005, Trevor Appleton wrote:
    >>>> Is there a suitable newsgroup for anyone interested in buying a second
    >>>> home
    >>>> in France or relocating there? I haven't managed to find anything
    >>>> relevant.
    >>> fr.petites-annonces.immobilier ("fr.ads.real-estate") seems relevant.
    >>> It's apparently extremely unusual to sell a house privately in France;
    >>> everybody uses an agent.
    >>> Yves Bellefeuille
    >>> <[email protected]>
    > In 2002 I bought a house in Italy -I am from The Netherlands- and I went
    > looking three times for some weeks to find out where I would like it to
    > be.
    > Once I had established the region I started looking for website of agents
    > in the region. That gave me plenty of choice to start mailing from home.
    > While not many spoke English some were more than helpful.
    > Good luck!
    > Ronald
    > www.mulazzo.nl
    >

Earl Evleth

in article [email protected], Daniel Masse at
[email protected] wrote on 17/01/05 7:27:

    > Yves Bellefeuille wrote:
    >> It's apparently extremely unusual to sell a house privately in France;
    >> everybody uses an agent.
    >
    > I have to desagree with that statement... According to statistics, more than
    > half the appartment/house sales are direct sales. The reason : agencies
    > fees...

I don`t know the statistics on that. We bought our place years ago because
a friend of our's said his neighbor wanted to sell. So no agent. The price
was lower than we knew the place was worth and so grabbed it. The seller
was under pressure. If the seller is engaged in buying another place, having
signed a promesse de vente, they are under a lot of pressure to sell and
will lower the price.

We had already looked at about 40 places in the Parisian area so knew the
market well. The main thing is don't be in a hurry. It is a bit like
courting, you should fall in love with the place you are going to buy.

One common publication in Paris in which places are privately listed is
the PARTICULIER A PARTICULIER, sold on most news stands and it has a web
site http://www.pap.fr/.

This also lists places in the countryside. The places listed in the windows
of the agences give one a feeling for what is offered at what price.
Often the price is 10% or more (20% n the beau quartiers) above what you
will start negotiating for. The prices in the windows of the agences are
puffed up by 10-20%.

The advantages of the agence from either standpoint is obvious. First, as
is in our case, the private seller might not have a good idea of the value
of what is being sold. Old people might be in this position. Usually people
have an inflated idea of what their place is worth but this is not always
true. So in using a professional they will help establish are reasonable
price for sale. If the place does not move in the period anticipated,
and the agence agent tells you you have too high price you can believe
him/her. For the buyer, a good agence will be able to set up visits. If you
carefully instruct them of
what you want you should not waste you time on junk visits.

Agents do not like to waste their time so a place that needs a lot of work
does not interest them very much. The place we bought needed some work,
we put in a better bathroom, for instance. Really major work is another
problem, ripping out walls, floors, redoing the interior completely. Our
building is well over 100 yrs old and the wood in the floor rotten, and
replacing was a major job. We had to move out when we eventually did it!
Anyway, really low prices are for wrecks which if they are in a good
area and it is a good building, can be a value. Paris has a number of
marginal areas which are gradually upgrading (the llth, for instance).


The 6% fee of the agence is paid by the seller.. But the
seller will try an hike the price to take care of that. Say the seller
thinks his place is worth 400,000 euros, the offering price will be
maybe 440,000. This leave room for the buyer to offer 410,000 and maybe
they settle for 415,000. The agency fee is 6% and the seller will get
415,000-6% or 390,000 not too bad. The problem for the buyer is the
notarial fees of about 8%, for him the final price will be 415,000 +++ or
around 450,000 euros, 10% above the market. In a upmoving market the buyer
might accept this double hit, and a static or depressed market the buyer has
a lot of power, especially if he/she has cash in hand. If the place has
been on the market for a while it might go for 350,000. The real estate
agent will put lots of pressure on the seller if the buyer looks likely.

Earl

Gg

"nightjar .uk.com>" <nightjar@<insert_my_surname_here> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
    > "Trevor Appleton" <[email protected]> wrote in message
    > news:[email protected]...
    >> Is there a suitable newsgroup for anyone interested in buying a second
    >> home in France or relocating there? I haven't managed to find anything
    >> relevant.
    > I don't think there is. Living France magazine is probably the best source
    > and they also have a useful web site:
    > http://www.livingfrance.com/

<snip>

    > Colin Bignell
Other possible sources of information are the France Voilà newsletter at
www.FranceVoila.com and The France Weblog at www.Fblog.com . We've been
getting the newsletter since our stay in an apartment in Nizas in Languedoc
owned by the creator of the newsletter, Tony Tidswell, an expat Englishman
who renovated an ancient house in this old village into a home for his
family plus two apartments. The Tidswells have since moved to another town
in the region. He's seems to be very knowledgeable about real estate issues
in France.

GG
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