Looking at the Telegraph article on the viability of buying here in France it strikes me that the comments were, with exception of our James, snaffled up by people out to sell, lease, rent or generally deal with property. It strikes me that here on SFN we could help people by 'reviewing' the people trading in property. There are some stinkers out there as well as some worth recommending, both French and non-French agents. Could we put something together? I simply want to see fair deals done and not pushy sales stuff, but OK that's just me.
pussycats compared to UN officials, I do not treat them gently to begin with. so they can suffer like the rest of us, stand up and be judged immoblier!
Brian, we are talking about estate gents here.
yes, but presented by the torygraph as an article which is how most people will comprehend it.
I am thinking back to when I came over househunting, the agent we bid through in the end was on a bit of a scam but did not cover herself well enough - ok so it saved us some dosh. other agents, french and 'brit' obviously cared little about the people they were trying to sell to or for. I was taken to far too many well off brief and refused to even look at them, had houses with major structural problems that looked good, most places had no dpe available although I demanded to see them. I met and have met plenty of people buying since and far too many people are a walkover for some agents, in as much as once they see something they like far too much essential information is witheld. I know the ethics of salesman/womanship often demand that but we do not have to tolerate it and consumers always hold power in their hands if we use it. I have nothing to gain from this myself but if the market is moving here again and people coming in from other countries in particular need support then they should have it. If that is a little bit of comparative from pleased and displeased punters then that is at least a start. It is where I am coming from and why that article/press release got my dander up because I saw the lack of people with negative comments screaming loud out of that page. I am a researcher, therefore accept nothing that has only one dimension and does not give complete information.
This looks like an Article, but it's a Press Release. Inviting press releases by publishers is a tried and tested 'mutual' arrangement' The author ( or PR Firm ) writes the text, adds pics and submits it to the 'editor' or in this case Property Features editor. He is likely to print it, as assuming it is authoritative it will seem as if the Rag has gone into the field and conducted an interview. The author gets 'exposure' and the Publisher can print 'other' comments, even sell space to advertisers. This technique, probably has even more effect now-a-days are there are many 'electronic' methods of 'linking' info. The author probably has a good rapport with this and other Publications, and is possibly even contacted by the features people when they 'do a Special on France...or whatever. So it's al contrived...how to challenge this? write a press release.
ones in the comments boxes below the article
Hello Brian, where are the comments that you refer to?
Can you put a link in to the article please, I can't find it!