French Estate Agents

In many countries, including America, the UK and Australia, if I want to buy a house I select a local agent I like and I ask them what properties they can offer in the areas I am interested and at the price I can afford. They check the requirements on a computer and in seconds can show me all the listed properties in those areas and in the price range I ask – not only that they can show me a Google map, satellite picture or possibly a Google drive past of the actual houses.

The estate-agent is confident I will deal with him, although they may be showing many properties listed which are signed to other agents, as the multi-listing-system shares this information throughout a total network and agents (generally) work together.

This open and comprehensive exposure has many advantages, the person selling knows their property is shown to it’s best advantage, photos and maps are freely exposed, prices asked are realistic, an overpriced property will easily be seen as one which compares unfavorably with neighbouring prices and prices will not be set under the fair and realistic market price as this can also be seen quickly by the owner. Agents in these countries earn a sales commission around 2 to 3 percent.

In France, getting information from most agents is like getting blood from a stone – this week, for a client, I have been requesting a very clear specification for a family home which must be within 15 minutes by foot from the center of Pezenas. Two agents I visited for them have point blank refused to tell me even roughly where the properties are – we have to sit in front of them – hear a lecture and then be accompanied on a visit from a prior appointment – seeing five properties a day this way from one agent is very hard and frustrating work. A day later two agents complained that the clients did not go back to them for more “appointments”, I had to tell them that the rubbish they had been showing had discouraged them to the point they did not wish to return to them – had they shown honest photos and told us where the properties were a lot of time would have been saved and they may still have had a chance to sell them a property.

Unlike the USA and UK etc – in France there is no central Multi Listing System – estate agents are concerned that buyers will go behind their backs to other agents – or even worse directly to the owners. In fairness there is some justification – commissions are usually over 6 percent (often double this or more) of the selling price so on an average sale in France the buyer and save from 15,000 euro on the advertised price – add to this the complication of the owner to have many non-exclusive contracts with many agents often all at different offering prices due to commission variations and an estate agent in France is not encouraged to even give a clue to which village a property is in, let alone the address.

It is all going to change – I am telling agents I can use search engines to find the other agents listing their listed properties and with clues and a compound of photos from these sites, use satellite maps combined with the government plans to get the exact address of all the properties in less time that wasted on one visit draws blank looks of total incomprehension from them.

Soon we can all use photosynth – http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/129 – to find anything from images we input and all agents depending on mystery, smoke and mirrors, they will have to rethink their function.

Meanwhile – if you know of a good family home, walking distance from the center of Pezenas, with a pool and under 400,000 euro – please contact me , I have a customer.