Has anyone bought property in France? Do they negotiate on price?

[FingonTheValiant]

Hi,

Dh and I are gradually gearing up for the return to France (fulltime), and although he is French, he knows nothing about property etc, and has been useless about asking his family. I'm usually the one who deals with money/investments type stuff, so I think he isn't used to it and forgets about it, which is very helpful.

We know whereabouts we're going, and what we're looking for, but I'm not sure whether prices are open to negotiation, and if so, how much by? We're looking at a fairly rural area, where property moves slowly, so I would have thought yes, but I don't want to insult people by offering too little, or spend more than I have to (obviously).
I also don't want to rely on asking the estate agents as I'm not sure where their interests lie.

I would really appreciate any experiences you have on this one.

Thanks very much!

I don't have experience myself of buying property in France, but I know our old neighbours had to drop their price quite a bit and accept a lower offer. We now live in Luxembourg and some French neighbours told us they were surprised that here people's offers start above the asking price, whereas in France expected to offer less than the asking price. So I would think you can definitely negotiate...

Good to know Weta, thanks for that. I just need to work out how much is reasonable then.

Oh yes, definitely offer below the asking price.
Also it is worth knowing that the purchaser pays the estate agents fees and the notaire's fees. In rural areas a lot of places are for sale by notaires so if you find your property through a notaire, you avoid the estate agents fees.

BUT worth noting that notary fees are HUGE so you must budget for that. Can't remember exact percentage but if you search around you can find it (there are several online calculators on, for ex. www.pap.fr or www.seloger.com). If you want to avoid agency fees you can try searching on www.pap.fr or on ebay petites annonces you can find adverts for properties straight from the owner.

Thanks Otherside! How much below can we offer without seeming rude (roughly)?

All our local estate agents (in rural France this is) list the prices with all fees and taxes included, which makes it nice and simple to work out how much we'll actually pay. So that's one less thing to factor in.

The downside is that most of the houses need serious renovation, and so we have to allow a fairly substantial amount for that - which is why I'm keen to knock the prices down.

Thanks for your help

Dh is training to be a notaire, I must keep reminding him that property law is the way forward...

Actually that's a good point BriocheDoree, I'm not sure if the notaire's fees are included or not. Might have to give them a ring.

We had an offer accepted at 80% of asking price but they had a bridging loan and were getting desperate.

I don't know what the general etiquette is though. Also depends how wildly inflated the asking price is.

When we bought, the asking price included the estate agent fees but I don't think it included the notaire fees - not for our side anyway. I know we paid notaire fees on top (about 8% of property price).

DEFINATELY negociate - we knocked off 10% (we tried for 15 but hey-ho), but it all depends on whether the asking price is reasonable or not and how many other buyers there are.

Also, try looking through pap.fr - you can buy directly from the seller without using an estate agent and save everyone some money. Plus if you're good at negociating you can really get a good deal.

Also shop around for your mortgage - get two offers from different banks and use them to negociate with the banks to get a better deal.

(I have a French DH who negociates EVERYTHING )

You'll have to sign a compromis de vente, 3 months before signing the sales contract. You also 10% of the property price at that time. You then have 45 days to get yourself a mortgage. If you can't get a mortgage then you get your 10% back. But if you drop out for any other reason during the 3 months, then you lose your 10% and the owner gets it. However if the owner backs out during the 3 months you get 10% of the sales price.

There are a couple of other clauses about reasonable drop out reasons - do check them before signing the compromis de vente.

If your DH is French, get him to do some research on French websites to know the legal ins and outs.

I live in Belgium, but the system is more or less the same.

On the compromis de vente, make sure you include the clause relating to the mortgage and make sure the language refers to a reasonable mortgage or something like that - not any mortgage at an extortionate rate. Also make sure you include any stuff you want doing in the property that the owners agreed to do, e.g., painting.

Definitely offer below asking price, at least 10%.

Good luck!

Thanks so much everyone! That's all really helpful. I'll definitely have a look at pap.fr and get dh looking at the legal bits.

Thanks for the advice about the clauses sayanything, although I'd like to think the notaire would sort that if they're claiming 8% in fees

Now to check out the mortgage situation. At first glance it seems they lend a lot less than an English bank would...

I would complain about how complicated it all seems, but to be fair, I haven't been through this in England, so maybe it's just as bad.

Thanks again

The max lending, I think, is 33% of net income as mortgage repayments, although at the moment there are lots of schemes from all the banks to help people to buy houses.

We found that in the Correze, they weren't keen to negotiate as the brits are rich. Def get your dh to do any calls to make offers etc as there might well be a french and a brit price.

If you need to do renovations, budget about ?1,000 per aq m if not more if have to pay someone to do it for you.

Home improvement grants are available, but only after you have made 2 tax declarations, but there is a credit impot scheme for certain types that will pay up to 40% of the mats + vat and if you don't pay tax you get a cheque.

Don't forget that although the notaire fees are huge they also include all the property taxes equivalent to stamp duty etc.

Definitely negotiable and the price for the same property can vary significantly between different estate agents.

We bought a house in France in 2007. The price had already been reduced by 15% and we then offered about 12% less than the new asking price and the offer was immediately accepted. We could probably have had an even lower offer considered.

The same house in the next door estate agent was about ?25k more!

The house had been on the market for almost a year and we were in a strong position to buy which must have helped.

Good luck

Forgot to say, a good property site for agency properties is www.fnaim.fr - or have a search in www.pagesjaunes.fr for immobiliers in the area where you are looking and look at those with websites.