How to be your own estate agent
If you are trying to sell your house in France without using a property agency, you need to know how to be your own estate agent. This means you basically have to do everything a good agent should do. And if you do, you’ll probably do a much better job than 90% of the property professionals in France.
How to be your own estate agent and sell!
We’ve written a site filled with articles about buying and selling your house in France without a property agent. We just want to quickly remind you of some particulars in the selling process. It seems this is for many private sellers the hardest part. You need to be a professional marketeer and a business man – or more to the point business woman, because it is often the wife doing the selling (and the buying, for that matter) of the house. Here are our tips:
1. Set an attractive price for your French property
Look online and compare the prices of other houses in your area. Remember that every month you don’t sell is also costing you money. Insurance, heating, taxes, mortgage… You do the math.
2. Take every buyer seriously
We often get feed back from sellers on Immogo who say: “This guy wasn’t serious. He offered us not even half of what our house is worth. I didn’t even bother to answer!” Wrong response! Many buyers are inexperienced negotiators. They think starting very low is the best way to wind up with a low final price. If they had found you through your property agent, the agent would have coached them into a more realistic bid. But since they don’t come with your agent, you’re it! It is up to you to patiently point out the prices of comparable properties in the neighbourhood, explain you are in no hurry to sell, show how much you’ve invested and keep pointing out the strong points of your property (you’ve made a list, of course). This way you can often coax them to come up with a more reasonable offer and who knows, get them to sign!
3. Never give up a buyer
Don’t lose heart after an unfruitful visit. It might still lead to a sale! I’ve heard many stories about people visiting, telling the seller off, then coming back later with a serious offer. Sometimes they’ve found another house to buy but the sale fell through and sometimes, after a longer period, the seller has lowered his price enough to make the house come within the buyers budget. So if you have interested people, keep their contact information and keep mailing them every time you have news. Lower your price? Painted the shutters? Does the garden look stunning in spring? Got a good quote from an artisan on important renovation work? Contact the nay-sayers and remind them of your property. You won’t be the first to sell to someone who seemed to have lost interest.
Hang in there!
Basically, what this means is that our main message to you about how to be your own estate agent is: Perseverance is the key to success!
