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How to sell your house in France It took me three years to sell my farmhouse in France. Firstly, to begin with I naively expected the estate agent to do it for me and secondly: well there were lots of reasons I don't need to bore you with... but I learned a lot from the experience, mainly out of sheer desperation! This is what you need to do to help your sale along: More than 50pc of houses in the Languedoc are sold directly 'particulier a particulier' – so advertise in:
Anduze, maison de village en pierres F3 & mezzanine 85m2 jardin 64m2. Annexe. Belle vue. Bcp de cachet, cuisine equipee. tres bon etat. Chauff. gaz. SDB, 2 WCs, cave, proche tous commerces. 169,000 € - urgent Tel xx xx xx xx xx and add your address (won't be printed, but they need it for their paperwork) Webwork: You'll be frustrated with the quality of the photos that a lot of estate agents use. The lack of information that agents give to buyers will, at least once, be the reason a potential purchaser returns to their car without even entering your house. So by all means make your own website with photos and description, but don't expect the agents to use your photos or show your site. Having your own site means it will contain the essential contact details that potential buyers need to get in touch directly with you and not via the agent (and their commission). In your advert on the above websites, mention the URL for your own site– this way more people have the opportunity to look at your photographs. Use your own site to sell your property to overseas buyers and individuals – mention it to the agents in case they feel inclined to download your far superior photos (done when the house is immaculate and well lit and taken with time and care (maybe even a professional photographer? - see contacts below). (NB The printed newspapers above won't let you use URLs in case they are pornographic!) Building a website won't necessarily cost you anything - idiot-proof webpages can be put together on sites like www.blogger.com or via your own ISP. If you don’t want to do this yourself - www.FrenchHelpServices.com can create a site for you for a small charge. Tip: always include a photo of the front of the house. Do It Yourself: Make a pack to give to potential buyers. Hand these out as people leave after a viewing - remember, they've probably visited 5 houses that day – your information pack will remind them of all the good things they have seen when they looked around your property! Include in the pack: French Help Services can put a pack together for you for a small charge Even French agents are now putting advertising boards outside houses marking them for sale. So why don't you do that yourself? Agents In France, agents work mainly on a non-exclusive basis - meaning you can use as many agents as you like. They charge between 5 and 10pc commission to the buyer or seller (depending on which way you read the contract or how they sell it to you...). I'll leave it up to you, but I wouldn't sign an exclusive contract with an agent - binding you to only them, and still charging the same amount of commission - it'll just take longer to sell. If you've had a low offer, the agent should / will usually offer to drop their commission slightly to bring down the price too. If they don't - ask them to - nothing is fixed in this business. After you've put an ad in one of the newspapers above - you WILL receive a dozen or so calls from agents looking for new properties (unless you write agences abstenir on the ads) – its up to you whether you do business with them. BUT, beware of taking on too many agents - potential buyers will see the same house advertised at slightly different prices (due to slightly different commission levels) on all the different websites - this will smack of 'desperation' to sell. Once you have your adverts and agents in place. Don't just leave them to it. Every couple of weeks, pick up the phone and call them - ask them: You'll find that after Agents have visited three or four times with clients, they may lose interest if the clients are telling them the same things: i.e. too many stairs, neighbours too close, too isolated and so on. It's very difficult to weedle this information out of the agents. Ask each agent to give you a feed back call after every visit (if they don't, call them). House Doctor? I've been looking at houses more or less constantly for 10 years now. I can tell you that at least 50pc of the houses I've seen are either empty, or agents or owners don't bother to turn on the lights or even open the shutters. The gardens are overgrown and the pools are cruddy. So don't go breaking your neck to make sure that your sofa cushions match. It just doesn't work that way here. However, I do suggest that you: The Visits I personally don't like to be followed around by the house owner - I prefer to ask the embarrassing questions of the estate agent first. Let the potential buyer come to you after the visit for additional questions.
I hope this information helps you sell your house in this currently slow market www.FrenchHelpServices.com can help you with every stage of selling your property, if you do not have the language skills or the time to do it yourself. Our tariffs start at 40 euros an hour. We also offer a package of 6 hours for 225 euros French Help Services 20 Esplanade de l'Europe 34000 Montpellier Tel 04 67 71 79 10 Email: info@frenchhelpservices.com No job too big, too small or too bizarre! Contacts: Professional Photographer: Mary Gaudin (BA hons) photographer//designer + 33 (0) 954 97 57 01 9 rue Louis Roumieux, 34000 Montpellier
www.FrenchHelpServices.com
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