1) Asking price.

We found this to be alomst infinitly variable. In any given area you could find two houses as near identical as is possible in France and one would be going for 100k and one would be going for 250k. Try as you might, no logic would account for the difference. But *sometimes* a quiet word with the selling immobliere (remember, *you* pay his fee - even if it is a percentage of the finished price) will reveal the house being sold by a vendor with utterly unreasonable expectations…

That said, we’ve seen more than one case where Unreasonable Expectations have been met by someone else even whilst we’re wondering if it’s even worth an offer…

Friends of ours were recently selling (long story) and based on the price the paid, the condition the house was then in, the condition it was NOW in, even if you disregard the huge amount of work that accounts for the difference, I stuck my neck out and told them to ask for 300k. On the advice of the immobliere who sold it to them in the first place, they asked for 200k. That’s odd - he’s the first person I’d have thought would go for the higher price, so why he thought he couldn’t have got it I don’t know. It sold for the full asking 200k so very quickly that everyone’s now wishing they’d asked a bit more at least.

On the subject of furniture, one HUGE point to remember is that the immoblier’s fee (if one is involved - we bought direct - of which more below) and the notaire’s fee, and some of the taxes involved in the sale, are a percentage of the price of the *immovable* proberty i.e. the house itself. The *more* you can have of your agreed price specifically made out as a payment for Other Things like furniture, kitchen appliances, the better. (Bear in mind the notare will not let you get away with tricks like the €10,000 light fitting!) In our case our house was divided in two and one half already *fully* furnished, so we put down something like €8k in total as furniture. BUT it had to be fully itemised and listed on the vente as it forms part of the contract, which seems a little strange, as things like a coffee machine and a gas-hob kettle are now part of the permanent history of this little house, along with the list of previus owners and what they paid for what reading back like Leviticus!

Also permanently written into the contract is the detail of any morgage you may take out to buy the property, by the way.

Immobliere. You don’t have to have one! In our case, we heard the house was for sale via word of mouth, had a look at the outside, and then asked the vendor to come let us in for a look. (He lived 150km away). He said get the key from the agent, but we pointed out that if we did that then the agent would instantly earn about €12,000 and that would come *out* of the total available pot of cash, i.e. however true it may be in theory that the purchasor pays the agent, the bottom line was that fee would ahve to come out of the cash we could otherwise be offering him. He came. No agent was involved, the agent’s fee went totally out of the picture.

Now of course, not everyone can find out who’s selling a house without going via the agent. And the agent will make damn sure you sign a chit saying he told you first, to secure his fee! But you can find houses for sale with no agent involved by

- keep an eye out for hand-written For Sale boards. If you see such a thing, go see the seller direct, even if your first instinct is to find otu if your tame immoblier knows anything about it. He will - but in the process of finding out and telling you, he’ll have earned his fee!)

- visit your local notaire’s offices. Lots of properties are sold via the notaire. In a small office there may just be a single A4 folder with half a dozen sheets in it. But some larger offices have as big a display of property details as an estate agent! The notaire or his/her staff can arrange visits to properties, etc., just as an immobliere would. Unlike an agent, they don’t actively sell, they sit and wait for enquiries. So the advantage to a *vendor* is to use an agent who will get out there and find him a buyer but, of cousre, for a fee. But if the vendor isn’t in a rush he will realise he may get more money, albeit at a slower speed, by selling via the notaire’s office.

I’m also told, though I’ve not followed up in any way, that you can visit the local tax office and see a list of properties being sold by the state where the owner has defaulted on his property taxes. However, this is more likely to yield up a half-acre of woodland or a… when we see a house with no roof, crumbling walls, and a tree growing out of the window, we refer to it as a “fixer-upper”.

We understand how tedious and frustrating the home search can become.

Duane

Lots of really useful info on your site, I wish I’d found it sooner!

Matt