Hi Jane
Many thanks for your comments. Much appreciated.
I would like to take up your kind offer of sending me a copy of some notes you put together concerning advertising your house. My email is: grhmcarpenter@gmail.com
We sold our house in the Aude last year after very poor performance by both French and English operated local agencies. We sold our village house to Brits and had a very healthy number of enquiries and viewers once I took charge of advertising. I am so enthusiastic about taking charge of this process yourself, I put together a few pointers on what worked for us. If you would like a copy, please send me your email address - and good luck. Its nice to take control and get the results of your own efforts!!
Many thanks to everyone who has replied.
I have to agree with Dan Newton, much better to use a good local agence immobilier than to try and sell your property yourself. I worked in France in immo for 12 years so have loads of experience, the good the bad and the ugly so to speak and I found buyers from all countries preferred to deal with a pro even though they did have to pay the fees. A good agence will make the whole process so much easier and deal with all the niggling problems that inevitably arise.
Hello Gregor,
I know you have been in the business a long time, and I know that you have been taken to court (and won in your case), but according to the loi Hoguet the vast majority of those sites flaunt French Law when they offer to advertise the vendors property under their own "agency" name on differing independent property portals, whether French or English base.
I believe that with your site (which does have a paying upfront option), people pay to advertise on your site and your social media pages, you then use the money to reference and advertise your site and thus is very 'findable" for potential buyers. In that case you are not breaking the law, you are just selling advertising, but for private vendors (as opposed to selling advertising to agents).
It's a very fine line in French law, even the Leboncoin has been taken to court about it..
The main point I was trying to make is that people can go it alone but they will soon realise that the cost of advertising and all the time and hassle, do build up rapidly, so why not take on an agent to cover the cost!
You will also realise that they don't just advertise your property, but can advise you on market values, inheritance laws, presentation of the property to eventual clients, take care of measuring up the property, independent photographic files (eventually drone shots, 3D imaging, virtual tours, etc), access to specialised websites for advertising, etc, etc
To come back to the comparison with cars, my first car was a Ford Fiesta for which I had the appropriate Haynes manual, so theoretically I could completely strip and rebuild the car if I wanted to.
I still ended up going to the garage for most things though because I did not have the motivation or knowledge (let alone all the necessary tools ) to do so
I'm sorry, Dan, but I must protest to your remark that 'a lot of paying 'private property' sites and advertising services' 'completely flaunt the French Real Estate laws and are illegal'. This is a scare tactic often used by real estate agents, but simply untrue. I myself have such a private property advertising site, asking 1% in case of success, and operating completely within the confines of the french law.
This is not entirely true, because the 6% the agency ask will have to come out of the buyers budget. This makes the negotiations harder and augments the chance you will have to lower your selling price to close the deal. In the end it is the seller who pays the agent, even if the money is provided by the buyer.
1 Like
Hi Chris,
All fair comments if you want to do the work yourself....and pay out yourself.
One point though, I think the website you mean is www.bienici.com , which has just been set up. NOT by the notaries, but by the main chains and Syndics (FNAIM, SNPI) in French Real Estate to battle with the over priced French Property portals (Se Loger, logic Immo, Boncoin) and which is strictly reserved to estate agents.
Unlike the UK where you can become an estate agent overnight, in France you have to justify your competences to the state to do so, this is mainly due to the fact that the French agent system is closer to the Scottish one more than the UK one, in the sense that we are not just here for the advertising, but also for the legal side as well as the Notary. And for this reason we have to carry heavy guarantees in case of miss conduct.
Interesting Graham, let me summarise. There are good and bad agents but most of them do not have good channels to UK buyers. They market through other sites which are based in the UK mostly. So you are using them to do the leg work and give you a value. The Notaire actually does all the legals and the geo measures your plot and updates the cadestrale. You will need a report on the house which you can done yourself or the estate agent can get this done for you. Either way, you will pay! You can advertise the house yourself on Rightmove for a few hundred pounds depending on the price you ask and all the prices are on the site. Most agents don't' list on this site but it gets 5m viewings a month on overseas property sales! It how much you want to do. If it was me, I would pay no more than 2% and list on Rightmove. I would take all my own photographs and do my own description suitable for English buyers. Put together estimates for any work that needs doing like heating updates or new windows, pool etc and include these with the description. Put up your own site and handle the direct enquiries yourself. But it depends what you want. 30% of house sales in France are direct 5% in the UK. But that is predicted to increase to 50% in two years. The same will happen here. For example, a group of Notaires have just partnered with LeBonCoin to for a site called Icibien. It's only a short step from there to direct buyer seller contact on the web? The day of the middle man is at an end, remember travel agents! Happy to help more if required.
Don't forget that alot of the FB pages are run by agents, negotiators or sales services, so don't forget to check out who the admin are!
I totally agree with Martin Phillips, but then again I would being an estate agent!
Estate agents are not the cancer that everyone is making them out to be, but as with all walks of life there are good ones and bad ones. If you take your car to a garage and get bad service, do you stop completely from getting it serviced?
There are a lot of paying "private property" sites and advertising services being set up in France and on Face Book, but besides the fact the completely flaunt the French Real Estate laws and are illegal, they also charge you several hundred €uros to advertise your property, and if the sale goes on for a while then this soon adds up.
Concerning estate agents over here, some are more active than others, but if you are looking to advertise your market to a UK based clientele, then the best thing is to go on the UK based websites (ZOOPLA, Rightmove, French Property Centre, French Property Shop, Primelocation, etc, etc) and see who is advertising in your area and take it from there.
DON'T FORGET thought that more and more buyers are starting to realise that the private sales sites are not necessarily the best place to buy, as a large majority of vendors on there are unhappy with local agents.
Why are the unhappy with local agents? .... because they didn't sell their house for them.
Why didn't they sell their house for them? ....because the property was overpriced.
Why was the property overpriced? .... because the vendors didn't agree with the local agent evaluation and thus put it on the market too high
Thus the vendor resorts to private sales sites and we end up with websites were the majority of properties are overpriced for their respective areas, even if you pay "NO AGENCY FEES" ...
So I would say check out your local agencies, see who is pro-active, call them in and listen to the advice AND evaluation!
If you have land for a couple of ponies, try preloved,
£10 an ad ... horse quest.
The equestrian world go on this site, my friend sold on here very quickly. Property always wanted near Caen , for ferry and
carpiquet airport use, we stay no here and always being asked for 40k radius. Also for competitionsale in locality. Worth considering.
Selling a house privately can be very problematic, however I know that Leboncoin is a popular site.
You stand a better chance of selling through a reputable agent, who can negotiate a better deal and sort out all the red-tape. As for agency fees, they shouldn't really concern you, as you fix the asking price i.e. the price you would ask in a private sale, then it's up to the agent to cover his/her own fees, by asking more. You don't need to accept any less than you would in a private sale. Nothing to lose and everything to gain using a good agent.
Lots of private sellers - and Agents - use Greenacres.
French buyers seem to look on Boncoin for buying anything & everything.
"Moving back to the uk" a private site on facebook will give you plenty of advise on selling your house in france and the most cost effective way of doing it.
Hi Jane,
Do you still have those tips you could share, please?
Thank you, Jennifer
Hi Jennifer - can you send me your email and I will forward the tips on to you?
Regards Jane
blockquote, div.yahoo_quoted { margin-left: 0 !important; border-left:1px #715FFA solid !important; padding-left:1ex !important; background-color:white !important; } Dear Jane,My email above is yenni@hotmail.co.ukThank you in advanceBest wishes Jennifer