Sterling is 20 percent stronger against the euro in the last few weeks so property in France is 20 percent cheaper than it was before Christmas. Prices in France have dropped about 10 percent on average over the last 12 months, but are now stable – people have waited for the last year to put their property on the market, now there is a lot available which makes it a buyers market with a stronger pound – so I conclude now is a good tome for Sterling of Dollar buyers for French property

…..I am also basing this on the feedback from guests at our home Villa Roquette since March most guests staying with us have been seriously looking at property for sale – two have made offers, three are returning with the intention of buying. In twelve years of renting and selling I have never seen such a high level of interest, even if the euro gets weaker, the demand for property will mean increases in asking prices soon I believe.

I am only referring to Languedoc as this is all I can observe but I guess the euro/price effect is similar elsewhere.

After retreating three years ago to heal my wounds from a grievous mauling, I am again entering the jousts and offering homes for sale in our part of Languedoc.

Working with an honorable man through the long established estate-agency Coast and Country in Mougins, we are rebuilding our website SouthernFrance.com to give information and services for property buyers, sellers and renters in Languedoc.

My modest stillness and humility will now be augmented – so come one come all to France – I am here ready.

“Recently I had the unpleasant experience of dealing with two agencies in Pezenas who proved to be dishonest, deceitful and devious – combined with a client who was a sad and silly little man.”

and had this mail from a reader …

So Tony name names! (Or at least give me a private stir so I can steer clear).
Johnathan

==

I replied…

Hello Jonathan,

The “sad and silly little man” recognised his own description and wrote to me saying …

>>>
Tony

I realise you won’t dare to post this message, but if you do it will be a pleasure to tell your readers about my experience with you, compared to dealing with the decent and honest folk of Pezenas.

And I must warn you that any postings regarding my bad experience with you, which in any way identifies me or the agencies involved, will result in legal action.

< <<

As publishing this exactly as he sent it would reveal who he is (and he is a very nasty piece of work) then I suppose he could mess around with legal stuff and although what I am saying is true, I really can't be doing with the aggravation.

The story would be interesting and exposes several agents as lying, greedy cheating scumbags and this man as a pathetic and devious little twit.

Overall, nearly every agency I have dealt with has revealed themselves to be completely lacking in any ethics and, in these hard sales times, acting like starving rats in a cage.

I am working on software to eliminate these parasites so any buyer or seller can get together quickly and at no cost - I make money on carrying other advertising.

There are already advertising sites to introduce buyers and sellers in France http://www.pap.fr and http://www.entreparticuliers.com/ so far these only list, at present, a small percentage of all property for sale, but growing fast.

Thanks for reading

Best wishes

Tony

Psst – if you want to buy or sell your house just call on “Honest Tone”

They are aggressively sold by some developers to overseas buyers – usually the management company operating the rentals is not the development company. In my opinion they are usually a safe investment giving a low return, but they are not a way of getting a free second home, a free holiday or a home to retire into – they are an investment.

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Hi Tony
Really enjoy your newsletters.
Just wondering if you have ever had any experience working with the Pierre et Vacance group on their lease back program. They have many properties and I have stayed at quite a few.
They have a “newish” program in Monflalnquin, an area I really enjoy that I am considering.
They want 10% down and allow you up to 4 and one half months a year for your personal occupancy. The rest of the time they rent it out for you, manage it and send you any outstanding money for the let. You must rent it out for 9 years, but that works out perfectly for us.
Sounds great, but you know what they say when it sounds too good to be true.
Would enjoy your view point of this.
Also…how bad are the Mistrals in the Provence area? Have read about them but can’t seem to get a handle on how bad they really are.

Keep up the great work and thanking you in advance

==

Hello Miriam

Pierre et Vacances are a very large group with strong government connections. They have been marketing leaseback properties for many years.

Although the initial lease is for 9 years – you must assume with Pierre et Vacances that they will enforce their legal right to automatically renew this lease .

If for some reason a leaseback management company does not wish to enforce their legal right to renew, then the leaseback is not viable – it is said that French owners pray for a renewal and foreign owners expect to have the property released.

If for any reason the property is not retained on leaseback after nine years you will have to repay part of the value Added Tax compensation.

No matter what the sales literature “suggests” you must assume that you never have the right to use the property completely for your own personal use or occupation, it is solely an investment.

Leasebacks are designed to be attractive to French resident, high level, tax payers – other than this they are not a good investment offering lower returns than an average building society.

Any use you make of the property yourself must be declared as a benefit and you could end up paying tax on the theoretical rent you should have paid to occupy your own property.

Because of the locked in aspect of a leaseback, capital gains are more in line with tenanted property than with the same property in vacant possession. It is therefore strange that people pay the freehold vacant possession price and then receive effectively a tenanted property. As an investment this is very bad at present.

For an investor in property you should expect to get a return about 2 percent over that given by current government bonds (or about 8.5 percent today) – this suggests to me that most leasebacks are about 50 to 80 percent overvalued even allowing for the VAT refund.

The Mistral is a horrid wind that blows about 30 days a year, usually between September and March, it can appear out of nowhere at any time. I have experienced them and they are truly ghastly – like banging your head against a wall, they are wonderful when they stop and the sky seems deep blue after the yellow of dust an mud whipped up like something from the Wizard of Oz.

Hope this helps

Best wishes

Tony

Recently I had the unpleasant experience of dealing with two agencies in Pezenas who proved to be dishonest, deceitful and devious – combined with a client who was a sad and silly little man I found I had worked for many days only to be abused and cheated. The problem is that the commissions for selling a house are very large and this makes people greedy. It also explains why many owners despise estate agents and many buyers try to avoid them if possible.

This is a recent mail from a reader and my reply outlining my plan to put myself out of business…I write about other ideas on my blog at www.Twiku.com

==

Hi Tony,

I am writing to see if you know of a good website or method to sell a house in France that avoids the bastard Estate Agents, who are worse than incompetent, useless, etc etc.What would you advise?
Love your websites blogs etc, keep up the good work.

Kind Regards,

Eamon

==

Hi Eamon

This is exactly what I am working on – a system to completely eliminate estate agents and help owners and buyers to get together, thus selling more efficiently and faster plus also saving the huge theft of “commission” for absolutely nothing.

I hope to be beginning an ebook explaining what can be done and how to do it – also I am working on some software to show what properties are listed for sale in any place and how to locate and contact the owners directly.

Best wishes

Tony

I have much enjoyed your newsletter since subscribing. I particularly enjoyed the article about French estate agents.

Isn’t it amazing how they don’t even try to make the properties look nice in the photos – they are so worried that you will recognise it and make a private deal with the owner.

The beautiful flat I bought recently in Pezenas (well, so far I’ve only paid the 10% and signed the compromis de vente) was advertised with an enticing close up of the rubbish bins on the terrace at the back.

When I was looking for the house where I now live I thought that one young estate agent had got lost on the way, perhaps due to his fashionable swept back sun glasses, but later I realised that he was, of course, trying to put me off the scent.
I have some questions that I would like to ask you, but this space seems a bit small!

Yours,
Kirsty

==

Hello Kirsty,

They are all so worried about looking at other people backs to stab and over their shoulder at their own back to remove the daggers, that they never know where they are. Sunglasses are usually to hide the demonic red eyes.

Delighted you are to be a neighbour – do write to me with any questions – the box on the site will take as many words as you wish, it is infinitely expansive (like me)

Best wishes

Tony

==

Dear Tony

Thank you for replying so promptly. Much as I enjoy living here (like you, otherwise we wouldn’t be here) there are times when the voice of a compatriot is welcome. Like you I chose this area becauseI think the Languedoc is absolutely amazing – beats the Uzes/Saint Remy de Provence area, which is so fashionable just now, into a cocked hat.

I live in a truly beautiful place – Our hamlet is in a cirque, surrounded by mountains, and a rushing stream drops into a pool at the bottom of our garden. There are wild flowers everywhere, and I am in the process of making a garden, which gives me great pleasure.

Since my arrival I have struggled with rude representatives of France Telecom, le Sydndicat des Eaux, EDF. le Credit Agricole. Our telly, which we bought at great expense from Darty – they of the ‘contrat de confiance’ – doesn’t work when it’s raining, I changed from France Telecom becuse their service was so terrible (at one point, as we waited in their shop in Beziers for over 2 hours to be served, my son said ‘It’s just like Egypt here.’), but tele2 aren’t any better, and now it’s entirely my fault that the phone doesn’t work – my son, who works for the World Bank in Washington, complains that it’s like phoning Africa – it works one time in 5.

I have always thought that Pezenas was an entrancing place, architecturally so rich, not too big, but with a certain sophistication. The idea behind buying a flat there was partly that I could have a bit of an urban fix from time to time – go to the cinema or out for dinner without having to drive home in the dark afterwards etc, and also to let it out in the summer months to have a bit of an income. Since I signed the compromis de vente, of course, the euro has soared, and I will have to pay for it very soon with my saving which are, of course, in sterling – not clever. I seem to recall that in one of your articles you talked about currency dealers, but I have no idea how all that works. My money is at present in the Nationwide, from which I would like to remove it, but I’m not sure how to go about it. I also need to talk to someone who understands my tax situation – it’s not very complicated, but I seem to be being crushed between the 2 systems.

My partner owns some land not far from here, and the idea is to build a simple, modern, ecological house in timber, with solar panels, geothermic heating etc – he loves all the stuff, and to sell here. I foolishly asked the estate agent from whom I bought my Pezenas flat to come and have a look at this house re valuation, and also because we are in a bit of a quandary as to how much of the work that we intended doing – including building a swimming pool in the ruined bergerie – it would be worth doing. I don’t suppose you will be surprised to hear that he thought I would be very lucky to get back the money I paid for it, never mind the money we have spent, and that we shouldn’t do another thing, just put it on the market at once. Although we were both pretty depressed at first, I know in fact that he’s wrong. Apart from anything else my potential buyer is very unlikely to be French, and this is certainly not a good time to attract British buyers. We will enjoy being here for a while yet,and see what next year brings. I still can’t decide about the major works, but we are continuing with the multitude of small thing that need doing.

I hope you don’t mind me unburdening myself on you at such length. I would be very grateful for any advice you can give me.

Best wishes,
Kirsty

==

Dear Kirsty,

Don’t believe a word that any estate agent ever tells you – they are all liars and are only interested in twisting the truth to their advantage – I know – I am one.

Here is a link to the best people I know for currency exchanges.

French services have no concept of customer service or customer relations – do not worry – they are as ignorant and rude to everyone – it helps to thump tables and shout at them, if you can cry at the same time it often gets results – I refuse to even go inside a French bank now and do not even have a French bank account, I use the post office which is just as bad but at least is dirt cheap.

I know nothing about finance, but I bet the pound rallies and by the end of the year will be back to where it was a year ago.

Generally, in my opinion, doing major construction just before selling is not a viable option, although it may get a client quicker – the other side of the coin is that it may put people off as they often want to do things their way and the work may have been better not done and the price reflect this.

Thank you for the invite for lunch, we are pretty boring people and rarely move far from home – but if you happen to be in Pezenas do phone me and we could meet for coffee perhaps.

Always happy to exchange emails and comment on things which may help others on a forum or blog.

Let me know if I have missed any points or you want comments on other stuff.

Best wishes

Tony

You can even check on me to see my official working status, and registration details.

If anyone who offers services is not registered, then don’t use them, it is illegal for you to employ the services of anyone in France who is not correctly registered and you risk severe penalties by employing them.

Recently I have been writing about using Google and a mashup of searching tools to look for property to buy, in a recent blog post on Twiku I mention an application from Trulia and today I found another ingredient from the European Space Agency which adds one more tool to make searching for a home a simple and inexpensive experience and, importantly, a lot of fun.

I am working on my community site to give a service for people thinking about changing their lives on www.PortableSoup.com – being able to find a new home is probably the most important single decision and I hope that I will soon offer a search, find, identify and contact service using these new techniques.

At an average income net (after shared commissions etc) earning for a sale after tax of 3000 euro and after fixed deductions and social charges, I am working for 8 euro an hour net.

Then deduct from this my operating costs, mileage and fuel – (over 6,000 km) plus office expenses etc – I am effectively making 500 euro a month profit before tax for an average of a 32 hour week and no holidays.

I am also dealing with a vast dysfunctional tribe of local agents, many of who are acting like starved rats in a cage – in addition the system of sales in France is entrenched in the 17th century with no central listing system and a free-for-all of numerous agents mandated to sell every property, Internet bucket-shops, unlicensed ex-pats offering “finders-services” plus the owner all competing for the same clients.

Any intelligent client will now use the Internet to find the property they want from all the agents listings and then go direct to the owner to buy from them and cut all agents out completely. By using Google maps and careful searches, just about any property listed by an agent, no matter how carefully they try to obscure their sparse information. A property can be found and the owner identified using freely available Internet services. At present this can take a couple of hours research, but I am finding many tools to speed this up and soon there will be sites offering this service. It is a no-brainer for a buyer to do this as the commission charged by the immobiler is at least 6 percent of the selling price and this can be from 12,000 euro minimum on the price of an average house, which the owner never sees and which they can discount to a direct buyer.

I would be delighted to work for 5,000 euro an hour, because that is what researching with Google is worth to a buyer.

I could go on listing the problems, perils and pitfalls of this work – but enough is enough.

Tags: real estate, estate agents, french immobilier, property in france, french property

Here is a mail exchange I had today where I am trying to put some real figures on the costs of buying and renovating.

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Hi Tony,

I have just stumbled across your website as I am interested in purchasing a property for holiday/family use. We visited France in 06 for a month and it just gelled especially in the South so we are exploring the possibility of buying in the next 1-2 years.

I am interested in what can be got that may only require paint & paper plus say fitted kitchen and bathroom at the most. My question is that for this property for example…
medieval_house_to_renovate
…what would you expect to spend above the 55k for it to become reasonably habitable?

I am mainly interested in the Languedoc or maybe the Midi Pyrenees areas as they appear to offer the better climate and are in excellent proximity to good wine.

From a miserable NZ winter, Kind regards

Alan

===

Hello Alan,

In Languedoc, to buy a basic shell of a house ready to live in will cost a minimum of 1400 euro per square meter of living space – the average price of a home in Languedoc is 2200 euro per square meter. A large garden or special location will increase the cost of course.

As a comparison, to build new, not taking into account the cost of land, will cost from 900 euro a square meter – this is for a very basic simple property with no frills.

So the house in Pouzols at 55000 euro for 65 square meters suggests that it would sell for 90000 euro in good condition. The trick is getting the renovation work done for 25000 euro (allowing 10000 for all legal costs and taxes), in my opinion I could personally renovate this property in ten weeks work and using 20000 euro of materials, but 10 weeks work (350 hours) would cost from 7000 euro in labour – so the arithmetic is very tight.

Renovation of this property is just about possible in my estimation if a person was to do much of the work, but is not sufficient to allow for contractors to do this.

From what I am saying you can deduce that a small family property with no land or outside space which is habitable will cost a minimum of 90000 euro.

You are correct about the wine, I am delighted to say, and the weather is good.

Please let me know if this is useful, or if you need more ideas.

Best wishes

Tony