Oooh Stella! Hope springs eternal that my pittance will go further than the posted prices minus a single figure discount. What sort of % reduction ? Was there a major issue with the property? [My #1 nightmare would be a new roof]
My reply was in 2019.
However, earlier 2020 another house has sold after 10 years … 37k€ for an amazing 4 bed detached property on the outskirts of a small village… large rear garden, oil CH, everything kept in tiptop , albeit perhaps dated condition… although (sorry) the roof did need attention.
New roof is now done and the owners are having a ball revisiting the interior…
and in the garden… plans for a pool and room for a pony… 
there is a glut on the market… not possible to talk in percentages… all depends on how long the property has been for sale and how fed-up/ready to let go… the owners are… big winners are those who can buy outright with no chain… they hold all the aces.
Thanks for those cheering words, Stella.
It may be a bit ghoulish but I’d rather not shell out what a new roof costs because, being 70, I reckon someone else will get most of the benefit thereof!
Friends now looking in Gers [32] report frantic activity, loads of action, ‘hot cakes’ time. They’ve even been gazumped. They say it’s heaving with post-lockdown Parisians looking to get some fresh air …
An ex-pat could also be an unpaid ambassador for his/her country of origin.
Ha ha… that was the one thing my father insisted on… when OH and I were looking to buy in France… make sure it’s got a sound roof… 
Mm… we thought we had got it right. A local builder (expat) reckoned the roof was fine and whole house could be revamped for just 10k€… 
Sadly, he vanished after giving that glowing testament… 
but we’ve never regretted the move or the purchase.
It’s a wonderful life… each day has its challenges and its golden moments.
Christopher, I was told when we bought our first house over 20 years ago to start bargaining at 30% off the ‘asking’ price. This has always been a good sort of spot to start on our properties. When ‘bargaining’ for MILs holiday house (which she bought unseen!) we felt it would be rude to bargain as it was only GBP6,000 at the time so full price was paid!
I suppose if you don’t ask you don’t get - the trick is to offer low enough that you are initially below the vendor’s price floor but no so low that you are not taken seriously - I’m hopeless at it.
Sometimes, though, the right thing is not to bargain - I offered full price for the French house but I knew he’d a) dropped the price by 9k€ the week before we viewed and b) we only got a chance to make an offer because we were narrowly pipped at the post by another buyer but they flatly refused to come up to the asking price so it had fallen through.
I later discovered that he sold at less than his purchase price and had spent about 50k€ on the place - so I didn’t feel cheated by the cosmic accountant on that one.
1 Like
We bought at the asking price because:
(1) The previous owner was desperate to sell and had replaced the electrics throughout, installed a huge new kitchen and two high quality bathrooms, included all fittings and fixtures, all white goods, large expensive mirrors, satellite TV, garden equipment and tools…and (in the garden covered in ivy) a lovely Volvo 1997 estate car with a year’s CT. But no valid carte grise.
(2) My wife wanted the house and we thought (naively) it might go to another bidder…
(3) I wanted a clear conscience over the sale, and would never have felt comfortable paying less than the asking price at the other chap’s expense, 'cos he was heart-broken to have to sell up, and go. Brit with no French and no work.
1 Like
Though I shouldn’t be too snarky - being a Brit with not much French.
2 Likes
That is an important point to me. We haggled very gently over our house, just getting a bit off the asking price as the owners needed to move for psychological reasons (death of son). So we all saved face. And the old owners have become friends, and since he is/was a builder his help has been invaluable so I’m glad we didn’t push things to the limit.
(Even tho’ we will never get our money back as we bought this house in 2008 at height of market😶)
2 Likes
Paul this chap was à really decent guy and a very successful tradesman (carpenter, joiner and welder) but he spoke and understood no French. He tried with his wife to start any number of under the radar enterprises to meet ‘expat’ needs but found that no-one paid their bills for work done or services rendered, and he had no redress. He said to me three times during our short conversations during the hand-over “Never trust the anglais!”. I think he was bitter as he loved the house and the French experience. Many are still in that ghetto situation round here, but some others have settled in well too.
Your own French seems to be very competent and will no doubt improve quickly when you come back. My tip there is don’t agonise about the grammar, most of the people I talk to use very simple constructions including the dead easy stuff avez-vous été jamais à Paris et avez-vous été sur le tour Eiffel? That sort of stuff goes down well with locals of all types and stations, the simpler you keep it the better you seem to fit in. Or I do. At first my efforts at good grammar earned me weird looks, but now I just fake it and everyone seems happy and cheerful.
Vas-y, Paul tu peux le faire, c’est du gâteau ! ! Merci ? Ah non y a pas de quoi.
That last bit I got from Andrew Hearne and it always gets a grin out of people.
C’est du gâteau (it’s a pièce of cake) 
I’m sure and I’m not trying to be unsympathetic, but…
… it seems he was the engineer of his own downfall.
It’s rather better in written form as I can take my time and there are always online tools to correct my many errors - spoken I stumble over finding any French to approximate what I want to say. I keep promising myself I will take my time more but always get nervous and rush too much. My pronunciation is awful and I struggle with the Breton accent. Bits work though and it is getting better, just very slowly.
I think it is a matter for yourself and what you want to offer for the house. If it matters that much to you then you offer what you want to pay. Market value and other peoples’ opinions matter not. I can’t run people down just to save money - if it appears worth what they’re asking, then I’m prepared to pay it - I don’t want to run people down. I left loads of stuff in my house in the UK that I’m now paying for with my purchase in France (not paying the removal fees thought )
but it’s how I felt at the time and I’ll live with it
He undoubtedly was, but I think he was more a lamb to the slaughter than a wolf in lamb’s clothing. More naive than wicked. He made several efforts at turning this house (which was an ancient railway hotel and bar/resto) into a B&B but that foundered on his lack of language and the fact that the line closed after the war! He tried to get a lease on a town-centre bar but couldn’t negotiate a loan.
I felt very sorry for him. His wife went back to UK leaving him alone and with no income.
sounds like they didn’t get their act together quick enough… we signed the “promise” the same day we viewed the property… that stopped the Seller offering it to anyone else… but we had a get-out clause included to let us opt out later, if we chose to.
I paid the asking price for my house because it was worth less than the car I was driving and moving into a hamlet I didn’t want to be remembered as the incomer who had ripped off a local family. The immobilier sort of did it for me as they pointed out that they could knock 20% of the cost by saying that we didn’t want to buy the parcel of land across the lane. Years later I realised that could end up being a huge mistake if someone else bought it and built three or four new builds on it. Luckily that didn’t happen and these days our commune is only granting planning permission in the bit near the school and mairie and that’s over four kilometres away.
Our property was on the market for nearly 10 years… when we “the mad English” bought it the neighbours moaned/groaned … each family reckoned they should have bought it while they had the chance…
A property is worth what someone is prepared to pay… and, despite the low price… the neighbours were not prepared to pay that price… until it was too late.
I don’t know if others are like my French wife and me (I?). we have lived and bought houses or flats in assorted countries. We have always diligently made up our 'wish list" of requirements which have always been ultimately completely ignored when final judgement was made - except to the final absolute outside budget we could pay.
Decision was always made on whether the house or apartment appealed to us overall.
Yes we always made an offer well under the asking price, except with this place where the owner made it completely clear the asking price was firm. It was also very fair relative to the other places we had seen, and also the quirkiest. We just loved it from the start, and still do after ten years living in it. Although getting that much older I tend to regard the odd steps and staircases, plus the one in ten landfall, with more caution than before, I really don’t want to go to an ‘easier’ place to live in.
yes the French are bossy as far as I can tell but they need the tourists…….they really do.
So it should be reality check time.
Well the tourists eat junk and so do the French.
Sorry for my honesty.
1 Like
A slight generalisation?