Agence immobilier | My Husband Drives A Lemon

On Monday I bought a house! In fact I have been looking for quite a while, and nothing has really stood out enough to entice me to buy it. Unlike many non-french people who buy in France, who have no particular need to be tied to any particular place, and have a “coup de coeur” on visiting a house in a tiny village or amongst rolling french countryside, I am very fixed to the small city in which I live and work, and where my children, all four of them, go to school. Hence the dream of finding a house became a major task. Where property in the countryside in France remains cheap, in the cities, as a result of rural exodus, property remains often prohibitively expensive. There-in has lain my problem, finding the french dream in a the bustling city.

One of the major factors involved in house-buying in France is coping with the heavy fees associated. Price of home aside, the estate agent, or agence immobilière, demands a whopping 5% of the purchase price, and the Notaire, or lawyer demands 8%. The notaire can perhaps be partially forgiven as tucked away in his fees is the equivalent of the Stamp duty or land tax to the state which somewhat ofsets the rudeness of the bill. In comparison with the professional duties of the notaire, and his obvious level of expertise, the agent immobilier gains ‘money for old rope’. What does the estate agent do for his money? He holds a set of keys, unlocks a door or two, and later, if it goes his way, makes a few phone calls on your behalf to negotiate the offers to the vendor. Is that effort really worth 20,000€ for a house of say 400,000€. Can such a bill really be justified? I decided not!

I made it my mission to avoid the estate agent. Without his fees I could offer more to the vendor whilst actually paying less than purchasing competitors who went through the estate agent. Essentially it works as follows: A house is put on the market with an estate agent, but the estate agent does not put up a ‘For Sale’, ‘A Vendre’ sign, nor do anything to make the property visible to the public. Essentially he puts the best view he can of the back of the house, or better still an interior shot into his agency window. Hopefully the photo is enticing enough to draw in the public, but invariably the vendor loses out because the pretty front facade is hidden from the buyers – all to avoid one eventuality, that the purchaser goes direct to the vendor. While in the UK, the fees are sufficiently low , and the ‘For Sale’ sign clearly displayed to prevent direct purchaser/vendor sales, in France the situation is absolutely the opposite. It is normal for a French agent to organise a house viewing but refuse to give the address of the house, name of the owner or any visual street view photograph, arranging to meet the prospective buyer at the corner of a couple of streets, at a local cafe, or preferably at the agency. The idea is that the minute they have crossed you over the threashold and/or introduced you to the owner they can claim their fee if the sale results.

Since the money at stake can be anything from 10-30,000€+, avoidance of the estate agent is a major benefit. Some houses sell by word of mouth, friend to friend, associate to associate, but if all else fails a consistant letter-box fly-posting of requests for owners interesting in selling to contact you is second to none. I missed out on one beautiful house that I fell in love with because I ran out of fly-posts at the neighbouring house and never retraced my steps with more to post to the last few houses on the street. I ended up visiting it through an agent and kicking myself when a rival buyer outbid me. Had I not had the estate agent fees to contend with it may have now been mine. Another time I had searched intensively via Google Sattelite for a particular shaped garden path shown on an agents window photo, but ultimately, after all the searching and contacting the located house owner in question, a visit showed that the house wasn’t nice enough. Observing beyond windows shown in a interior photo shot to try to identify the colour and style of front door on the opposite side of the road, or a church steeple, a letterbox or an unusual landscape or tree can bear results and each of these procedures have been rewarded with a visit direct with an owner.

So it was that at the weekend, after a rowdy friday coffee morning amongst friends swapping information on houses for sale, and a bit of zooming in and out on Google street view and sattelite to see what was on offer, I received a call from an owner of a very lovely house, responding to my attempt to contact him, inviting me to visit his home the very same day. Before the day was out I’d put in an offer, or proposition, and by the following day I was sitting in the notaires office signing the first document in the French house buying process…

…with not an estate agent in sight.

We called the first estate agent that we ever had the fortune to do business with ‘Monsieur Moustache’ on account of his formidably waxed and curled whiskers. I will never remember his real name despite the fact that he very nearly succeeded to sell us our first French house. The most recent, last week’s agent presented himself in tight black leather trousers, a black shiny jacket and open shirt, before offering me a lift in his black open-roofed convertible! He was Mr ‘Smoooth’, … Monsieur Lisse.

If you have never experienced French house buying, here’s the nub. French Estate agents charge astronomic commissions on house sales. Something in the region of 8% and so they never, never let you know the address of the property, but whisk you there under a cloak of mystery and ensure that you sign a slip of paper after the visit acknowledging that ‘They’ were the ones who made the introduction.

Monsieur Lisse had two houses to show me and he did a very convincing job of trying to sell at least one to me. “Which, in my opinion” he asked” was the forerunner? It was fairly hard to be enthusiastic about either. It couldn’t compete with one i’d seen a few weeks earlier and which wasn’t on his books. When I advised him that the first house had a pleasant interior, but it’s exterior left a lot, and I emphasise ‘a lot’ to be desired he said..

“Ahh, mais Madame, on ne vit pas à l’exterieur, on vit à l’interieur. L’exterieur est sans importance…”

otherwise said..

“Ahh, Madam, one doesn’t live outside, one lives inside. The exterior has no importance..”

There I couldn’t disagree more.

I’ve always been somewhat of the opinion that the facade of a building is its face. Some wide eyed and open, others closed and sleepy, some sharp and mean, others friendly and welcoming. Its windows as its eyes, its door as its mouth. How can one choose a house based on its interior alone. A house is a reflection of its owner, it has presence; it frowns or it smiles, it forbids or it welcomes, it cocoons or it energises.

Normandy has a rich architectural history. Beautiful buildings in stone; in red and golden brick with silex infil (a kind of stone cobble and mortar) and in colombage. Each style can be found in town and in country and each have their own particular style and beauty.

silex to be broken to form wall infil

Here are just a few examples of what can be found:

Houses in stone:

classic and imperious,

Stylish but moody,

Classic but austere,

open and friendly,

grand and imposing,

reclusive and protective,

intimate.

and houses in colombage:

neighbourly and reticent,

charming and restful,

friendly and welcoming,

sleepy and protective.

or houses in brick and silex:

formal and quiet,

informal and friendly,

neighbourly and perky,

charming but secretive,

restful.

or perhaps a mix:

It’s not just a question of location and view but how a house will interpret and reflect one’s mood.

So what am I looking for in a house?

In the city I would like one with presence. I like to have a beautiful front door on which I can hang my holly wreath at Christmas, and ideally with a front garden to protect it from passing revellers, perhaps a balcony and a space for hanging baskets in the summer. I would prefer stone with beautiful large original windows to throw light into the deepest recesses. It must be welcoming yet classic, friendly but demure.

In the country I would like a grassy drive so that my kids can hang out of the sunroof as they do every summer holiday, and practice driving the last few metres home. The house must be friendly but a refuge, capable of being opened up on the hottest summer days and battened down on cold wet wintery nights with a large chimney promising a roaring fire within.

So here is my choice for my great French house hunt:

My town house – this..

or this…

and my summer retreat – this, with a mountain or sea view!

or this…

So when Monsieur Lisse presented me with this:

and despite the fact that it had exactly the same internal layout as it’s neighbour..

..it was clear that it had been very badly manhandled.

What Monsieur Lisse hadn’t understood is that buying a house isn’t just about finding a house in the right location, nor is it about finding a house with a functioning interior, it’s about that feeling of pleasure as one rounds the corner, sees a beautiful piece of architecture and thinks to oneself,

“….at last, i’m home!”