Upsizing with difficulty - a buyer's tale

After the recent "Vendor's tale" which recounted the successful sale of a property I owned in central France, I found myself with some spare cash in the bank.

Not a fortune mind you -  not by any stretch of the imagination.

Now, there seemed to me, a couple of options as to what I could do with the money.

Either I could go on a Viv Nicholson type (within limits of course) "spend, spend, spend" frenzy, frittering the money away on things I probably didn't need or want.

Alternatively I could put the whole bundle into savings and wait for the current excuse of a government to decide how best to get its hands on any interest accrued by levying a tax...a  move it was rumoured to be considering retroactively and over which it got itself into yet another fine Laurel and Hardy mess a couple of months ago.

Or - and this seemed the most sensible choice - I could invest in bricks and mortar and "upsize" my apartment in the Paris region.

Now househunting - or rather flat hunting - in Paris and its burbs, is quite a different ball game to looking for the home of your dreams in the countryside.

For starters, property - especially if it's located in the right sort of area - seems to sell more quickly.

I knew "upsizing" would swallow up most of my savings and require me to put my current appartment on the market.

What I didn't know was that the search for more-or-less (I couldn't afford - in all senses of the word - to be too choosy) the right place would be more difficult than I had envisaged.

Especially as it was supposed to be a buyer's market.

Anyway the hunt was on.

And as I had had such a positive experience with Leboncoin as a vendor (although it had been ruddy hard work) I decided to try the same approach as a buyer, combining it with the use of estate agents.

I wanted to stick to roughly the same area of my current flat or move to the neighbouring town. In either case I defined a maximum of half a dozen streets in, what estate agent jargon, is called the triangle d'or.

The budget was a combination of the money I had already received from the sale of the house and that expected from the eventual sale of my present apartment.

And I was equally clear on what sort of place I was looking for; it had to be old with parquet and original features.

I waited for the estate agents' response, all the while looking at the small ads myself on Leboncoin.

Maybe it's a Paris thing - but the estate agents with which I registered - three in total - inevitably sent through properties that came on to their books which roughly (in their eyes) corresponded to what I was looking for.

That often meant 40,000 or 50,000 euros over the maximum budget (even with a margin for negotiation that was pushing it, I thought) - and the wrong area entirely.

And their behaviour often left me perplexed.

While some were punctual and helpful in answering my questions as straightforwardly and comprehensively as possible, others simply didn't seem to know very much about the places they were showing me.

"Where are the radiators?" I asked one during a visit.

"Er...I'm not sure," he replied as he rang back to home base to discover that the flat was heated by an air pulsé (no, I didn't know what it was either) system located in the cave and apparently installed back in the dark ages.

"Would it be possible to visit it, to check it out?" I asked.

"Well I don't have the keys on me at the moment but it should be possible during a second visit."

He didn't - produce the keys, I mean - on that counter visit and I lost interest.

There was also of course, the agent who missed an appointment completely, leaving me waiting at the agency for over half an hour with a colleague insisting that he would be arriving any moment now.

When the 30 minutes were up, I had had enough - and left. One hour later I received a call.

No apology or even an excuse - just telling me that he would be available to see the property the following evening.

No thank you. Goodbye.

And those properties I saw.

Did the agents follow through wanting feedback? For the most part, did they heck as like.

None of them (thank goodness) tried to close on the sale.

They weren't pushy. Their job seemed to consist entirely of showing me around, answering questions as best they could and letting me take the initiative.

If I didn't buy, they seemed to know that another potential purchaser was just around the corner.

Over at Leboncoin, things weren't going quite as swimmingly as I had hoped.

Several properties seemed to fit my spec perfectly - at least in theory.

The reality of the visits though, proved to be a disappointment.

They had been beautifully (in the eyes of the current owners) renovated to the very highest "do-it-yourself" standards by those who clearly shouldn't...have done it themselves, I mean.

And of the dozen or so I saw, more than half of them didn't live up to the description happily and unimaginatively borrowed from the estate agent's thesaurus.

"Ready to move in to" said one.

Except there was no heating (the place had previously been rented and the tenants had presumably used oil radiators) and the bathroom was a hovel.

"All the charm of the old with a touch of the modern," said another which turned out to mean that the cuisine americaine (and I'm not a huge fan at the best of times) gave out on to the...hall!

"A lovely ground floor flat" with a garden offered the promise of "a haven of peace" (I kid you not) in the middle of the city. Except it was just a con.

The terrace was a couple of slabs of concrete overlooked by...well anyone who wanted to and could.

Another ground floor apartment with a green garden this time was a non-starter because on arrival I discovered that the owner had scheduled visits en masse (convenient for her, not for potential buyers) and one of the rooms was off limits because her young daughter was asleep!

"Hello? Did she want to sell or was she intent on wasting my time?" I asked as I left early not waiting for her response.

And another property in a "quiet residential street" was exactly that...except there was a ruddy great big building site next door.

Sadly Leboncoin didn't come up trumps for me this time around and it was instead through an estate agent that I finally found what I had been looking for.

And then of course the "fun" began as I bargained down the price (well, I ain't such a "fool and his money"), had my offer accepted and tried to fix a date to sign the compromis de vente.

Because I was initially told the date on which it would be signed was the one that would be most convenient for HIM - the estate agent - and not the one I had suggested.

Er pardon? Did I hear correctly? Was I buying or was it the estate agent?

I stood my ground.

"Could you send me a copy of the compromis before the signature?" I asked. "It'll save time and allow me to correct any mistakes in advance."

It also meant I could run it past my notaire. She was woman I had used several times somebody I trusted.

"No problem," he said after my second 'phone call asking once again for the compromis to be emailed to me ahead of time.

And it was just as well I insisted a third time (sigh) because I saw that my date of birth had been messed up (mind you, making me one year and one month younger, so I suppose I shouldn't complain) my middle name had become "Bareth" and my nationality...well, it was now - without having gone through the naturalisation process - "French"!

All's well that end's well (roll out the clichés). The bridging loan is in place and the final signature is set for this afternoon while the sale on my current flat is due the middle of March.

That'll give me time to have the renovation and redecoration done (no I'm not going to turn my two left hands to either) and gradually move what furniture I plan to keep.

The rest will be flogged on Leboncoin. Where else?

But that's it for the buying and selling game.

I've had more than my fill...until the next time that is.

Leboncoin your house - Sold!

The house had been with a couple of estate agents for six months and there didn't seem to be much interest.

There had been a few visits but "the market is slow and even though the house should appeal, the buyers just aren't there," the "experts" said.

Well, that's the explanation I received from one of the agencies, although the other (the local branch of a national chain) simply didn't bother with regular feedback.

So to help move things along a little, and because I had some time to spare, I decided to take matters into my own hands.

And that of course meant turning to Leboncoin.fr, a (generally) free classified ads website although to list a property, you have to pay if you plump for a package.

A word or two on Leboncoin, as it has received quite a bit of coverage

Its success since it was founded in 2006 has been phenomenal

Look at some of the stats (thank you Wikpedia). They're staggering.

Turnover in 2011 was €64 million - almost 80 per cent up on the previous year.

The company that measures (among other things) French television and radio ratings, Médiamétrie, released figures showing that Leboncoin was second only to Facebook in France in terms of the length of time people spent every day consulting the site.

It has more than 17 million one-time visitors every month (and that's just those looking once) and apparently 3.6 million log on every day to take a look around.

Heck there has even been a sociological analysis (don't "Zzzzzzz" out there) about it in a three- page spread of the national daily Le Monde. So it has gravitas now.

Little wonder then that some people swear by it when they want to have a spring clean, get rid of something that might bring in a few centimes rather than simply chucking it out, or are on the look-out for a bargain.

And then there's the real estate side of things.

It has apparently revolutionised the housing market (over one million advertisements and counting) - cutting out estate agents and their fees.

Now I'm far from being a natural salesman - quite the opposite really. And I had my doubts as to whether I would actually be the best person to market my house. But hey. It was worth a shot.

I couldn't do any worse than the professionals now, could I?

(screenshot from Leboncoin.fr)

Photos taken and uploaded, description written and checked, I placed the advertisement and waited.

And it didn't take long for that proverbial ball to begin its roll.

Over the next three months there were almost 40 enquiries by email or 'phone coming at all hours of the day, and that wasn't counting  all the unsolicited calls from professionals insisting they had "someone who was looking for exactly what I was selling".

Quantity wasn't everything of course.

Each enquiry required lengthy details and explanations on location and, of course, trying to gain an idea - as a vendor - whether the house would actually meet the potential purchaser's needs.

While the level of interest was quite high (maybe it was just at the right asking price) I also came to the realisation of how much work (some) estate agents put in to their job.

In fact, the whole process was to prove a steep learning curve.

To begin with, separating the wheat from the chaff in determining who were serious potential buyers and who were simple time wasters, was something of a nightmare.

Sometimes it was simple. As in the case of the man from Germany who wanted the usual sort of info you would expect and then, after a couple of weeks "reflection", made an offer (lower obviously) at a price he considered the real market value based on "other properties for sale in the area.

And that was without having visited the house.

He received a polite response saying, "Sorry but I'm not interested".

There were inevitably enquiries that drove me around the bend with questions that were often nigh on impossible to answer.

Where's the nearest village, baker, post office, railway station, motorway exit? What's the bus service like - for the woman who didn't have a car. What are the neighbours like? How far away are they?

I could deal with those - more or less.

But "What's the house like?" and "How is does it feel inside?" rather stumped me.

It was all a matter of personal taste after all, and not something that could really be answered without visiting.

While some enquiries were clearly genuine, others came from those who seemed to have stuck a pin in the map or were merely passing time ringing every small ad on the blessed site.

A woman from Paris, two years away from retirement apparently, was on the look-out for a place in the country and contacted me via email with the longest list of questions imaginable. They ranged from layout, decoration, heating and sanitation to colour of the walls (really) the timetable of the local bus service, and the days on which the rubbish was collected (huh?)

She received a prompt (and polite) answer - her enquiry came pretty soon after the advertisement had first appeared, so I was riding that first wave of enthusiasm - only for her to reply immediately with "helpful" advice on how she would heat the place and informing me I was asking too high a price.

"Get in touch with me should you drop the price and I might be interested in visiting," she wrote.

Yeah. Right.

Then there was a man from northern France who wanted to know more about the possibilities of turning the place into a home for the elderly. Apparently the commune in which the house is located is one that gives grants for such projects.

I patiently explained that all bedrooms - bar one - were on the top floor and the stairs were not exactly easy to negotiate if you weren't altogether nimble on your pins  and in my opinion it wasn't suitable for people of a certain age.

"But could you send me additional photos and tell me more about the house," he insisted, ignoring what I had just told him.

Another woman rang to tell me she was interested in the house but the bank would  only agree to lend her half the asking price!

I listened. I answered her questions and I thought, "Why is she calling?"

And the questions and requests for extra photos just kept coming.

Was there fermage on the adjoining land? What were the taxe fonctionnaire and d'habitation? What's the soil like? Building permission? The outbuildings? How many hectares?

After hours of painstakingly answering questions and providing extra information, I managed to line up three separate weekends' worth of visits with a dozen potential buyers.

And that proved to be a whole other ball game. One for which I was ill-prepared.

The first visit was from a woman who turned up with her father-in-law (a builder), her brother (a plumber) and her husband (an electrician) with a barrage of technical questions I simply couldn't answer.

Then came the donkey man - so-called in my head, because he kept donkeys - who loved the house first time around but on a second visit with his rude father, was persuaded the surrounding area was too damp.

Well it had just rained and rained and rained (remember the spring we all had in France?)

Tant pis.



For some the house was too isolated. For others not isolated enough. The house was too small, too big, too dark or too light - you get the picture.

Occasionally there were comments on the decor or layout.

Somehow I overcame the temptation of appearing defensive and answering back. I let the house speak for itself, with no desire to present it in any other light than an honest one.

If anything the whole experience was one of learning how to be diplomatic, and meeting and greeting such  a wide range of range of people was fascinating

Some were interesting, others simply tedious or downright rude.

The man who complained and criticised everything, even before entering the front door. A rambling life history of how another had separated, not seen his children for several months, lived on a farm but was only renting temporarily.

A couple whose search for the right place had to start all over again as their finances had fallen through first time around (not a great omen)

Family disputes, histories, plans, dreams and aspirations...

Had I turned in to some kind of Agony Uncle, or was it my Libran charm working wonders?

I wasn't really selling - more showing people around and leaving it for them to determine whether they were interested and all the while listening to their various life histories.

There were also the no-shows - encouraging me early on to insist on a contact number when a visit was arranged.

And even one poor man who turned up the wrong weekend.

Some visits though fair warmed the cockles.

Mrs goat woman - so-called in my mind because...do I need to explain...thought the house was delightful.

Mr wardrobe man - not because he had a thing about furniture, but was concerned about whether the ceilings would be high enough for his antiques - was equally enthusiastic.

A woman from Savoie wanted to buy a property for her daughter and four small grandchildren who currently lived in Bretagne so they would closer!

I didn't like to point out that it would still be a four or five hour journey away.

She wanted to make an offer on what was her "coup de coeur" but wasn't in a position to until her daughter had put her house on the market.

Er...I thought. That's not really the right way around here in France.

And the best reaction of all when I asked a woman visiting what she was looking for, she replied, "I'm looking at it."

Although she made an offer, it was well below the price I was asking.

The result of all the work?

Three offers - including one at the asking price.

And I've just returned from completion.

So merci Leboncoin.

But would I do it all over again?

Given the right set of circumstances, perhaps.

The fact that I was several hours drive away from the house I was selling, made the process more complicated than it might ordinarily have been.

And I'm not sure I would want to hear people passing judgement on my main residence. I'm not certain I would take the criticism so easily.

Plus, as enjoyable as it sometimes was, there's no denying it was also bloody hard work and tiring.

If nothing else, the whole experience left me knowing why I had always entrusted the selling of any house I had owned in the past to estate agents.

And I also came away with a new found respect for the work they have to do.

So, if all else is failing and you have the time, patience and...I have to say this, the language skills (I only had one non-French visitor) then give Leboncoin a try.

You've nothing to lose.

Bonne chance.