French purchase offer – Offre d’achat

Promise of purchase – Offre d’achat If you want to sell your house in France and you find buyers who say they are interested, you logically start with negotiations. At some point the price will be agreed upon and an appointment has to be made for signing a compromis de vente (preliminary deed). By the … Read more

Do you want to pay or get paid in France? LUMON offers an excellent exchange rate.

If you are visiting Immogo, you are obviously planning to buy or sell a property in France. Good for you! No matter wether you are selling or buying, you (or your buyer) will need to transfer money to or from France. That means changing £pounds£ to €euros€. Now of course you could just use your … Read more

Selectra helps you set up your energy and internet contracts for free!

Selectra compares energy suppliers, internet providers, mobile operators, insurers and banks to help you reduce your bills. This is all entirely free for you. Of course they get a commission for signing you up, but because they are such a big company, they can negotiate the best prices for you. Selectra is an excellent tool … 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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Immogo, the specialist in real estate communication

Onroerend goed-communicatie FrankrijkSelling a house is an art in itself. An important part of the job is real estate communication. For houses in France this is a lot more complex than in many other European countries. The market in France is much less transparent, with real estate agents trying to outdo each other and also having to compete with both the notaries and their clients: the private sellers themselves. After all, many owners try to save 5 to 6% commission by finding a buyer themselves – without a broker.

As a result of the fierce competition between brokers, there is no site that – like for instance Funda.nl in the Netherlands – makes the market almost 100% transparent. Real estate agents do not want to share their portfolio online without restrictions, for fear that their competitors will try to poach their clients.

Real estate communication is too much of an investment

Another important problem is that brokers in France are not prepared to invest in their clients. With a few exceptions, especially in the higher price ranges. We can see the lack of motivation from the presentations that the real estate agents produce in the field of real estate communication. Poor pictures, brief descriptions, no presentation advice, for example with home styling. In other countries this is much more evolved. As a result, all the houses on sites outside of France are neatly arranged and super clean on the photo, with only tasteful (and noncommittal) art on the walls.

Why don’t the

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Why are real estate agents in France so expensive?

A real estate agent in France costs the seller between 4% and – in the case of cheaper houses – as much as 10% of the selling price. While in the Netherlands as a seller you only pay 1% to 1.5%. Why is the estate agent so expensive in France? Does he or she deliver so much more quality? The sales advertisements produced by the real estate agents do not reflect this. A superior quality is obviously not the reason for the high price of the French broker. We will gladly explain it to you.

‘MANDAT EXCLUSIVE’ – TIED TO ONE BROKER

If you hire a real estate agent in France, you have to sign a “mandat”. This is the official assignment for the real estate agent to sell the house. There are two types of ‘mandat’. A ‘mandat exclusif’ gives the real estate agent the exclusive right to sell the house.

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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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