His wife teaches French, so |I am sure that he would have understood.
They have been here more than twenty five years.
Ah well, itâs definitely a mystery ⌠
No you can relieved that you are certainly not the only one.
We have âsold our property and certainly nothing do to with the efficiency of the agent
Iâm so tired of all this fake estate agents they are not really agents they more like a glorified door opener expats that have taken a 5 day course. they never have all their paperwork ore info on the propertyâs I take my time to see the house but itâs like they donât care newer have more the 30 minutes to have look on the properties
Iâve been following this thread for a while ⌠and have come to the conclusion that many of the comments - angry or confused for the most part - are the result of a basic misunderstanding of what is meant by âagent immobilierâ.
The person which shows you round a property is usally an âagent commercialâ.
The person who sits in the office and manages the agency, its employees, its contracts and its finances is the âagent immobilerâ.
The agent commercial has no legal qualifications apart from a 14-hour crash course in the basics. He, or more often she, is paid solely from commission on the sales they make. There is no âfixeâ. They are usually fairly young and out to make as much money as they can as quickly as they can. They are prone to telling clients ânâimporte quoiâ in order to accelerate the sale.
The agent immobiler on the other hand is usually from the legal profession. She, or more often he, must have a degree in law from a EU university and have their âlicenceâ renewed every three years after doing a 42-hour course on the latest changes to property law. They must have professional insurance (costly) and abide by all the deontological rules of the profession.
I have been an agent immobilier for the past 8 years with my own agency in Toulouse. I donât employ agents commerciaux because I think its counter-productive: my buyers are all over 50 (or 60!) and they donât take well to being told by a twenty-something that the fosse septique is in perfect working order or that planning permission is easy to get.
So I accompany every client myself. Maybe a 400 - km tround trip in the day (Toulouse-Dordogne). We spend 2 hours at least viewing the property and - very important - talking with the owners. If necessary I interpret as we go along. We may have lunch and Iâll get home in the evening after 8 hours with one client. About 1 client in 50 will actually make a second visit and even then only 1 in 100 will actually buy.
When I get home I have to update the websites, reply to dozens of emails, keep the notaire happy and informed about next weekâs compromis, help a buyer to get the EDF to link him up,⌠and all this 6 days a week (Sunday is kept for replying to unspecific emails: âDo you have anything near the Med?â).
I make about the equivalent of the SMIC each year.
I could make more but I only charge a commission of 3% on most sales. This is the internet age and I donât see why agencies need shop-fronts and heated premises: I work from home.
Soooo⌠it makes me pretty angry to read people denigrating the work that agents immobiliers are doing. Sure there are cowboys out there, as in any profession. But we meet a lot of vendors who have been burnt badly trying to sell their properties themselves privately: taken in by big talkers promising cash payments, 100% risk-free mortgages, trouble-free contracts ⌠all in a language they donât fully understand.
Many of the people on SFN expect to sell to a fellow Brit or American. But that is to ignore the fact that Brits are responsible for a measly 0.5% of property sales in France. The people buying at the moment are French! And Belgians, Dutch, Swiss and Parisians. If you canât understand what theyâre saying you have no business trying to negotiate a âŹ500k contract! And yet âŚ
Before you use an agent - whether buying or selling - you MUST ask:
- Rates of commission. Anything higher than 4% should be eliminatory
- Languages: can they deal with French, English, Dutch and German clients?
- Advertising: is their site just a formulaic listing of boring information (WC 2.18m², 3 bedrooms of 9m², 12m² and 15m²) or does it give a feel for the property?
- Photos: supplied by the âownerâ (and therefore 15 years old) or taken by the agency photographer?
A good agent will vet the buyer before they get a chance to view. Do they have their finances in order? Are they ready to move in the next 6 months? What exactly are they looking for? In what region? Etc.
Only then can a viewing be arranged ⌠for the specific property that they are interested in! I NEVER take a client to see a property on spec because he âmight like itâ. It never works. I will send her information and photographs about a suitable property but NEVER a speculative visit. Deadly: you never see them again.
The agent must create a personal relationship with the client - buyer or vendor - and this takes time and energy. And this is what differentiates good agents from poor agents, ⌠and agents immobiliers from agents commerciaux.
oops! A bit long ⌠got carried awayâŚ
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Hi @Simon_Oliver can you put a link to your website, it would be interesting to look.
Your approach to sales seems very different to Agents Commercial that we have dealt with.
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Mat -
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It whold be really helpful if the agent had more pictures most times I have asked for pictures the have max 10 if their hade more it whold save time on a visit to a property for both the agent and the potential buyers I have looked at propertyâs with a agents that I whold not have even gone to if the had showed me pictures from the start most countries now days have at least 50 pictures a floor plan
It would make such a difference to be allowed to have the address of a property. Quite happy to register with the agents first if they are concerned about loosing their commission. So much time is wasted viewing properties, based on a few km to this or that place, with no idea how close neighbouring properties/main roads etc are. Requests for more info are generally ignored. So frustrating
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Seems you are a positive exception in the trade. The problem with the French system is that people put their property for sale at 4 agents, so every one agent can only sell 1 in 4 houses he inputs in his system. This in turn makes it impossible to work for 1.5% (which is the normal fee in countries where people just take 1 agent). If you only take 4%, and you can sell just 1 out of every 4 houses in your portfolio, you effectively make only 1% on average.
The system is broken. But to fix it, people would have to do only exclusive contracts and 3 out of 4 brokers would be redundant.
Remember when we viewed a property in UK, when I was a child. Detached ex-public house - only one photo, but the written blurb made it sound ideal for a large family. 
Turned out it was detached by about 2 or 3 inches on all sides ⌠and they forgot to mention that the large garden was down the street⌠
We had all piled into the car, full of hopes and dreams⌠and on seeing it, with the best will in the world⌠it came nowhere near !! 
Bojour Gregor
Thanks for your input. The problem with the âfour other agentsâ doesnât really bother me as I know that
- They will stick the property on their shop window and add an unattractive listing on their site ⌠and thatâs it and
- their fees will be much higher than mine ⌠which should in theory put buyers off. It doesnât always unfortunately until itâs too late.
Alas, the âexclusiveâ contract may work in the city but out in the country properties take over a year to sell ⌠so a 3-month exclusive contract is useless. It just frustrates the vendor as they think they will automatically get a buyer in that period. They very rarely do.
The system is not broken: itâs just very very badly designed and run by very conservative monopolists. A bit like the Travel Agent business which, through sheer conservatism and blinkered thinking, went to the wall as soon as internet booking (flights, hotels, rooms) became the norm.
The Estate Agent business could go the same way ⌠but some of us are trying to change things!
The sad thing is that the French realtors, even the good ones like you, canât afford to put a lot of money in each client because they might be investing for the benefit of another real estate agent. If you look at the quality of house advertising in Holland, for instance, where every home is styled and photographed by professionals, there is no comparison. I even get hired by estate agents to write the copy for the ads! They are ready to invest 300⏠for a better description since they know they will eventually but certainly get paid. And since the commuccion is only 1.5% the owners will be ready to pay a bit more for professional âfluffingâ ad advertising.
In France, an agent canât even bill extra for professional photos, I understand.
One of the problems as far as Iâm concerned is the poor initial information, leading to unnecessary visits, and time-wasting on both sides. I am currently involved in looking for a house, and its annoying to be taken round a house which is clearly unsuitable. A good idea of the position would be very useful - I suppose a street view would be hoping for too much, and floor plans. Both are now standard practice in England, where the charge is much less.
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As my old mum used to say when she came up against the people âsailing desksâ and inventing forms, âWhen were you born and why?â
Quite so. Despite having a professional competence with maps and location identification, I have wasted hours on Google earth and street view trying to locate properties in small towns and villages in FR. The Spanish are even worse. They actually put circles on maps that may be kilometres away from the property.
Itâs all to do with the multiple agency paranoia.
They donât give the address or location because if they do that most people would go straight to the owner and negotiate/do a deal cutting out the estate agent (as Iâve done on numerous occasions : not forgetting that 50% of all sales in France are private sales 
)
I understand that put when it is like 5 villages away thatâs just taking the piss one property I was interested in was 30 minutes away from where it said it was thatâs just a scam in my book
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I have just returned from a viewing trip. I dealt with / attempted to deal with 4 agents.
1 was brilliant, turned up. On time etc, responded to enquiries and questions quickly, even if to say I will find out.
The rest, well 1 failed to turn up at a viewing apointment, when chased claimed a family situation, fair enough, but then failed to respond to questions asked on the property, nor to respond to requests to view another.
The other two failed to respond at all to calls or emails requesting viewings.
Does not inspire confidence.
I too have just returned from a âviewing tripâ. I drove for nearly two hours from my office in Toulouse to meet the client in the Dordogne. He didnât show up. When I finally got through to him on the phone (after driving a few more kms to find a network) he said âWell, in the end we didnât really like the look of the countryside ⌠so weâre off elsewhereâ.
A Day in the Life of an Estate Agent.
I canât remember the number of times Iâve shown a property to clients (after giving them full information, positive and negative aspects, hundreds of photos) only to hear âWell, itâs a bit secluded isnât it ?â after Iâve told them ten times thatâs itâs isolated and has no near neighbours. Or âbut there is a field next door: weâre afraid someone will build on itâ. Stuff like that.
The reason is that clients (you, the buyers) do not read the text on the agentsâ websites. You do not ask enough questions before the visit. I NEVER let people visit before Iâve given them a confidential run-down on the property with all the possible negative aspects (main road, factory up the road, no sunshine in winter etc and a GEOPORTAIL land reg link). There is no way I am going to spend four hours driving just to hear someone saying he didnât know it was on the main road.
And I insist the the vendor is there to talk to them. No buyer wants to speak with an agent: she wants to chat with the people who run the place, the owners.
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