A house in the South of France for less than 100k

One of the most common requests I get as a Property Finder is from clients looking for a traditional village house with at least two bedrooms and a terrace in a lively town. In fact, this is exactly the request I had from a client when she first contacted me at the beginning of the year. We had several long chats so I could find out exactly the sort of thing she had in mind and to make sure that it was feasible as it would be a waste of both our time (and her money) if I couldn’t fulfil the brief. I have to admit that my heart sank a little when I heard that the maximum budget was 125,000 euros, including all fees but I knew that as long as I picked the right villages I could find some good properties for her.

As the client wasn’t coming out for a viewing trip until September I started my search gently, just wandering around some likely towns & villages and chatting to friends and agents and was pleasantly surprised by the quantity and quality of houses available in the price range. Prices were considerably lower than they had been at the end of last year. Village houses vary wildy in terms of condition – invariably the exteriors are extremely shabby but once inside many have been renovated to a good standard. I particularly like the ones which have incorporated the original features and have exposed stone walls, beams and staircases worn by years of footsteps.

Over the last few weeks I have been narrowing down the dossier of potential properties by making inspection visits and reporting back to my client and much to my pleasure, if they haven’t already been reduced in price (by around 10%) the agents are assuring me that an offer would be accepted. One of my favourite properties is being offered by my favourite agent* in my favourite town* and has just been reduced from 110,000 euros to 95,000 euros. As you can see from the pictures it has been fully renovated and tastefully decorated, has beautiful views from both sides, has 2 bedrooms and a roof-terrace. It is also brings in 400 euros per week as a holiday let – what’s not to love!

*Names with-held to protect my livelihood (!) but if anybody is interested in this property (or anything similar) please contact me directly via email at caroline@perpignan-properties.com

When is the right time to buy?

Shortly after we moved in here a friend came to stay with us and one afternoon we had lots of ‘household’ shopping to do so we dropped him off in Perpignan where he spent a happy time exploring the Palais des rois de Majorque. When we picked him up later he was absolutely astounded to hear that in just 3 hours we had managed to arrange delivery of a washing machine & tumble dryer, buy a fairly large plasma tv and choose & order floor tiles for the guest wing. This is a fairly normal state of affairs for us and I couldn’t understand his confusion; the laundry equipment was a no-brainer in that all the machines seem to do much the same job so you always buy the second cheapest; the TV seemed to be the right size and roughly the right price and we are not ‘label’ snobs so don’t care whether it is manufactured by Bang & Olufson or But; and as for the tiles, for once we both agreed on colour, texture & size and the fact that they were on ‘promotion’ made our decision even easier. ‘Worried William’ said that he never bought anything without first checking it out in Which magazine, trawling the internet for reviews and basically making sure that whatever he was buying was the best of its’ kind. He even rented several different cars over a 6 month period before finally making his choice as to which model to buy as he was so anxious not to make a mistake.

Now this kind of attitude makes me sad as ‘William’ is so scared of making mistakes that he takes far too long to make up his mind and often goes without something completely. My husband has visited his home and tells me that it is very sparsely furnished - but what little he has is of excellent quality!

The reason for mentioning ‘William’ is that I was reminded of him today when I was taking a call from a potential client. He had been thinking about buying a holiday home in France for several years and explained that he was still very much in the ‘research’ stage as to which area to buy in and what kind of property would suit him best. He specifically asked whether it is now a ‘good time to buy’ and I had to think very carefully how to reply. Last week the euro was being traded at 1.2250/£1 which is the highest level in 20 months, property prices have only just started to climb slowly so technically this is a fantastic time to buy – but not for this particular client as I know he is not yet ready and even if he bought a bargain property he would worry that there might have been an even better bargain if only he had waited.

The ‘right time to buy’ is a very personal issue. I, and my Property Finding colleagues have been involved with many many property purchases over the past few years and, to the best of my knowledge, not one of our clients have complained to us that because of the exchange rate their property is slightly lower in value now or that they wish they had bought in another area. They came to us to find a property for them because the time was right for them. Interest rates, recessions and currency fluctuations are all relevant but if you spend all your time assessing these factors rather than trusting your judgement that now is a good time, you will end up like ‘worried William’, who, by the way, is not married........

My first 'Present' from an agent!

Many people who call themselves Property Finders actually work in partnership with estate agencies and take a share of their commission – which naturally means they are drawn to certain agencies which, in my opinion, narrows down the search options for their clients. I don’t do this. When I first started doing this job and explained to estate agents that I was part of a national network of fully licenced Property Finders and that essentially I could be introducing new clients to them and not expecting anything in return (apart from a good working relationship) I was greeted with great suspicion. Even now some of them can’t quite believe their luck, but it makes total sense to me as it means I can be totally independent and provide a much better service for my clients.

I must admit that I harboured hopes of receiving the odd bottle of wine (or case, even!) when a sale goes through, but sadly, apart from occasional coffees or lunches I have received no' bribes' or thank you presents! I was therefore ridiculously pleased to open an email from an agent I spent quite some time with last week which appeared to be ‘offering’ me a client!

This particular agency proudly advertises the fact that they speak English & German – but this is also the agent who advertises properties with ‘a toilet not to miss’. In his email he explains that he has had an enquiry from an English lady who is interested in one of the properties on his website but that this particular property is for sale in 3 different ways and that it is beyond his language skills to explain this to her so would I like to contact her. It is one of those ‘En Viager’ situations which I won’t explain here as I feel a whole magazine article coming on, but I can imagine how hard it must be to explain it in a different language. Sadly I have not yet had a response from the client but I feel that the gesture is a small step towards entente cordiale – although I would have preferred wine!

Whoops – nearly three weeks since my last post. My excuse is that I’ve been working very hard (which was never part of my game plan!) (And the picture shows the view of Mt. Canigou that I saw every morning on my way to pick up the clients so I can hardly complain). Some clients were over to view the properties that I had been searching for on their behalf over the past few weeks and as usual it has been a packed and busy schedule for all of us.

Drawing up a Viewing Schedule is sometimes the hardest part about property-finding: ideally I like to show 4 properties per day as any more can cause information overload for the clients, I then have to decide whether to show my personal favourites at the beginning or the end, and then I like to make sure that the viewings are in a sensible order and that we are not zig-zagging up and down the region too much. These idealistic plans would be marvellous if it wasn’t for the fact that apart from having to work around the weekly public holidays and daily two hour lunch breaks you have to throw estate agents and vendors into the equation. I cannot count the number of times that I have met an agent outside a house and we cannot get in because he has forgotten the keys (luckily only twice with clients), and as for vendors, I think it would be nice if they would put out their cigarettes, turn the television off and lock up their enormous dogs (and small children!) before allowing visitors into their houses. Have they never seen ‘House Doctor’!

Luckily last week’s viewings seemed to run fairly smoothly – the weather was glorious, the clients were lovely, only one vendor was out and none of the agents had to chase a tow-truck up a street in an attempt to rescue his car (as I witnessed last year)! The only time I felt things were not going so well was on the very first day and was entirely my fault – we had stopped for lunch in a little square and the clients chose salad and I chose to have prawns. It was only after the meal when my plate was littered with heads and tails that they told me they were vegetarian....!