Innovative ideas on house selling in France!

Yes, buyers tend to want quick too. Tell the notaires who lose things every time they should be getting a house without any problems quickly or when a geometre doesn't turn up for ages because X therefore the notaire sits on her rump...

Blimey - I put this post up to hopefully help a few people, who were prepared to take a more active role in their sale, to have a few ideas which might help them to sell direct! I did not intend to promote a discussion on the role of estate agents. How interesting that the same post on a different website has merely resulted in people requesting to share ideas that work - with an aim to make selling properties more successfully. What does this say about us on SFN? Come on folk - aren't we in the market to help each other to get the right result for the best price????

Our notaire guided us through this. I think it was the taxes d'habitation which got divided with the buyers (ie we sold yesterday and the notaire withheld 1/4 for us from the sun from the buyers and has paid that to us!)

Do the agents looking after the Chinese clients have a yen for the job ?

It is what I did creating http://buy-property-from-owner.en-france.nl/

The main reason for this site is to make people aware of the possibility to buy without using an agent. But at the same time, the site is made to find clients for Immogo. And for the businesses of the other contributors, like http://www.compromisdevente.info/english/, who help buyers by checking the compromis de vente for any loopholes and traps. Quite useful, to have someone on your side with in depth knowledge of the contracts and dangers of buying.

Almost all sites that give free information have something to sell. Which makes what Jane did (giving information about how to sell for free) even nicer.

Not everybody can, that is their merit. Indeed, the Chinese buying at present are actually refusing to attempt buying directly and insist on agents. The agents must be rubbing their hands with glee since they are already buying or have bought over 100 vineyards, several châteaux and various other enormously expensive properties most of which the owners probably prefer to do directly.

A number of agents who have been at it for a long time, certainly one here in the SW is something over 25 years at it and does quite well, says that her earnings and most other fellow agents are considerably down as property prices have fallen and the % gone down. So, I don't know myself but what she says seems to imply otherwise. The turnover rate of agents not making sales in the first year or two seems quite big too, so agencies 'hiring' (which it is not actually) implying high commission fast are pulling a fast one.

These are selling money exchange services, which is clear if you look through the site and the external sites they link to. But they do actually give sound advice and you don't have to use their services if you want to read their information.
So no. they are not out to deceive you, but they are not philantropists either.

As stated before, the buyer is NOT the agents client. The seller is. As a buyer, you need to realize that the agent is there to serve the other party by selling as quickly as possible and for the highest price possible. The first house I bought in France (in 2000), the Dutch estate agent told me that negotiations were not normal in Southern Burgundy. This was in the pre-internet era. I believed him and bought the house for the asking price. The owner almost fell off his chair when I popped the champagne.

The agent also told me the roof was in good shape and the holes I pointed out in the 'chevrons' were old and everything had been treated since. Needless to say at the first renovation I found 90% of the beams had to be replaced.

This way I learned that as a buyer in France, either you have to get your own estate agent working exclusively for buyers (they exist) or you have to be very skeptical about anything the agent says.

Let me stress again that this does not go for ALL agents. I also know a couple who are scrupulously honest, and would rather pass up a sale than lie wittingly to the buyer (sometimes to the chagrin of the seller).

Wasn't it Henry Ford who said 'A verbal agreement isn't worth the paper it's written on' ?

Yep, we live and learn..

Great article which could apply to other countries. I've been in France almost continuously since the '70s and I don't believe it's as negative as the article suggests, estate agency is 'dog eat dog' as i've already said which leaves the system wide-open to abuse. Just my opinion of course.

You are so right. That was my first purchase of a furnished property.

The people selling to me had made it (verbally) clear that the furniture would stay. After all, the flat was being rented by 3 students. It might have turned out differently if it hadn't been during the summer-holidays when the girls were absent.

That was a good lesson to me. Now I always have the furniture billed separately.

Not that I often buy furnished property. Il faut être pris pour être appris.

The Compromis and the Acte would state if the furniture or whatever was included in the sale. This is important because the notaire will put a value on the furniture in this case and this will be deducted from the total sale price. This amended price will then be used to calculate the notaires fees etc which will be cheaper for you the buyer.

Surprised you haven't come across this before John.

It's happened to me at least on four occasions i've personally bought and sold in France.

Let's all be naive and pretend that everyone in the real-estate business in France just wants to earn an honest crust

http://streetwise-france.com/professional-practice-crime-france.htm

It's pretty obvious why an agent will want to sign asap. They have families to feed just like anyone else.

How does it feel to be bitter?

For goodness sake, what have I done to you?

About the only time I've ever had a nasty surprise was when I bought a flat in Paris.

It was furnished and rented out to 3 girl-students.

On the acte authentique it was matked, ' sold as is ', and so I figured that the furniture in the flat rented furnished would stay. One day I went to Paris on a job and decided to pass by the new acquisition and saw the couple who had sold me the place loading the furniture onto a trailer. I went to see the notary public to complain, but he did nothing.

The only other 'incident' I've had was when I bought a country house and decided to install a dish-washer. The sons of the lady who had sold us the house had done their own thing and hadn't chosen to make it possible to switch off the cold water.

Apart from that, as long as I've avoided agents, nothing but smooth sales.

Sorry not to have had more problems.

Plenty of these bar stewards around. It was kind of what the agent who showed me this house was doing. She had her site with what were actually links to other agencies' properties which she showed as her own. I might have fallen for it except that she said something contrary to the vendor not knowing we were talking to him. In fact my OH spotted something odd. I went back to the ad, followed the site back and called the agency who said a few expletives with 'her again' somewhere in the string of curses. I strung her along and when we came over for a look over the place for 'planning purposes' made sure she turned up, we confronted her and told her that if we ever saw (literally) her again and with clients especially we would turn nasty. The agency had a call from me earlier to say that she was going to be with us, so one of their office bods was waiting with us. He gave her more of a mouthful than we did. Then he said that the agency having done no work on the sale they would not be demanding commission but that if she tried to extract a cent out of anybody, she would have the law to face. She had also fiddled about with the mandat realising the vendor is a semi-literate farmer who is easy prey and telling us because it was so cheap we would be paying her (I think) 5%, so she would have roped in 10%, we suspect in cahoots with the notaire but proving that is another story.

I never wished to imply that any agent as an individual is a crook. However their desire to conclude a sale as quickly as possible often makes them - perhaps under pressure from their boss - try to get the seller to lower his price considerably.

I started off uses agencies. Experience has taught me to avoid doing so. As you say, lack of experience can land one in a very un-smooth purchase. It's incredible to think that if, as you say, the seller pays the agency, the agent should favour his relationship with the home-seeker. I've been on both sides of the situation a dozen times, so no-one will convince me of the contrary.

Since 2009 a lot has changed. Firms like Capifrance emerged after many national chains closed down a lot of their agencies. Rather than have full-time salary-paid staff Capifrance take on 'freelance property advisors' to whom they give free training, but afterwards charge a sort of monthly fee for the right to operate using the franchiser's name.

I will never criticize anyone for trying to earn an honest living. I criticize the high percentage of the fees. Unlike notary publics' fees (seven point seven per cent), the agencies are free to charge whatever they choose. In the 90s it was 10%. With 6% on today's prices they earn maybe more than they did with 10% on prices in the 1990s.

Thank you for the facetiousness but they are offering the same kind of info that others offer, effectively saying all and nothing new that is already widely available. It does no harm and keeps a few web designers busy.

Peter, you said it and that is about as much as one needs to know without going into detail John.