Setting up shop in France – electricity, gas, internet, mobile, broadband, banking and insurance…

Moving to France is great fun, but also somewhat of a hassle. Especially when it comes to organizing all the subscriptions. Which provider offers the best services when it comes to broadband internet? What is the mobile coverage of the different telephone companies in your area?  How can you get a cheap subscription for electricity … Read more

Looking for property for sale in France? Here are Seven Ways to Save!

If you are searching for property for sale in France, it is a good idea to also think about how you will attack the problem of finding the right house at the right price. Looking at the enormous offer of property for sale in France, you will soon find that the prices are wildly different from one area to the other. And of course also the state of the property has a lot to do with the price. Other factors that influence the price are costs and commissions for professionals in real estate (agents immobiliers), and of course your negotiating skills. In this article I’d like to go into the different ways there are to save money on buying a house in France. Having extensive experience in buying property in France myself, I – ahum – consider myself somewhat of an expert. Even though I’m still a lousy negotiator. But you know the old adage: those who can’t, teach. So here are my tips.

  1. Look for property for sale in France’s less popular regions

Property for sale in France (Tournus)France has a lot of popular regions. Places where ‘everyone’ wants to buy a house. You’ll find large concentrations of British there, who’ve all heard from each other how great it is where they have bought their property in France. Unfortunately, the popularity of these French regions has also influenced

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Move to France – Cash in and check out… British are crossing the Channel

move to France buy a longere Move to France and live like a Burgundian… now this might be possible even with a limited budget. Especially in view of the still relatively modest property prices in France. In the more rural areas, a sum less than a 100,000 euros will get you a very charming independent home sitting on a nice piece of land. This while many people in the UK own a house that has become much more valuable in the past ten years. A surplus value of a few hundred thousand pounds is no exception! This is why more and more people decide: “Cash in and check out! We are moving to France!” They sell their old house and

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Start your own campsite in France? Don’t do it!

 Do you dream of running your own campsite in France? You’re not the only one. As webmaster of IMMOGO, a site full of French real estate from private sellers, we often receive requests to this effect. People mail the owner or even call us on the phone: “We are interested in this property, because it has lots of land. Can we start a campsite there?” The same thing happens with advertisements for large houses with many rooms: “Is this object (I don’t know why such a house would suddenly become an ‘object’, but well) also suitable to start a Bed & Breakfast?”

There are also a couple of up-and-running campsites and other tourist businesses on IMMOGO. With those properties, prospective buyers always want to know what the annual turnover is. “Because”, they entrust us with a sense of urgency in their voice,

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Buying a house in France with or without real estate agent? An analysis.

Buying a house in France without a real estate agent?Are you buying a house in France, where real estate agents easily charge 5% and sometimes even more? Then it is certainly worth asking yourself whether you should  maybe buy a house without a real estate agent. Depending on the selling price, the brokerage fees can add up considerably. The average price of a house in France is between 200,000 and 300,000 euros. So, at a commission rate of 5% you pay a brokerage fee of many thousands or euros. Of course, in itself it might not be a bad thing to pay a specialist for doing his or her job, as long as that job means that the numbers still add up. The question is what precisely a real estate agent does for

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Buy a hotel or restaurant in France

hotel for sale france - FSBO restaurant franceBuying a hotel or restaurant in France is easier than ever. While I am writing this, various restaurants and hotel restaurants in my touristy French town of Tournus are for sale. That is because like in many countries in Europe, and also in France, keeping the business afloat in the catering industry is not an easy job. Moreover, many French do not manage to adapt to modern marketing practices. None of the hotel restaurants that are for sale have a good website and most of them show little activity on social media. This is why they cannot compete with the more innovative players on the market, who make full use of the services of AirBNB, Bookings, and Trip Advisor. So, no other option than offering their French hotel for sale – restaurant for sale France remains.

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French real estate prices rise – The trend for 2018

2017 was an exceptionally good year for the French real estate market. House prices in France have increased with 2% on average and it now looks likely that this trend will continue in 2018.

French house prices rise

When we take a closer look at house prices in France we see big differences within the French market. The prices in the countryside have on average stayed more or less the same, while the prices in the cities went up.

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Why do people who dream of buying a castle pick France as a hunting ground?

 buy castle france 14th century old castle

The question is: why do people dream of buying a castle go search in France, particularly? The main reason is probably that France has a very large choice. There are hundreds of castles for sale in France, sometimes at surprisingly low prices. They are sold to serve as a home, and more often as chambres d’hôtes or luxury hotels. And sometimes divided into apartments for individual resale. But beware … prices are rising again! After years of bad business and falling house prices, nowadays, more prestigious objects in France, such as castles, are now for sale at a higher price than before. 

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Property in France still popular despite Brexit

english buy house in france+ 34% is the number of the day… a number that corresponds to the increase in purchases of real estate in France by British buyers compared to 2016 (Leggett Real Estate). The British, as it turns out, do not seem at all afraid of the imminent Brexit “rupture” with the continent with regard to their investments in French territory.

As a direct consequence of the ever-increasing demand from foreign as wel as French buyers, real estate prices in France are still climbing in the big cities – assuring that an investment in property in France will be an opportunity for <! – more -> added value in the long run. The company ‘Meilleurs Agents’ noted an increase from 1% to more than 5% depending on the city, whether in the provinces or in the capital, with Marseille in lead (5.4%).

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