What home sale websites did you use to sell your home?
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To save agent fees for a buyer, i tend to advertise my home as a private sale item. So i try to do private ads in LeBonCoin.fr Ebay.co.uk green-acres etc.but my response is so poor b/c exposure is not there, Brexit, something else – dunno.
Has anyone had better success selling? What agents, websites did you use to sell your home ?
thx
We found and then purchased our house because we did an interweb search for property for (in our case) “remote property in Brittany”. After ignoring the agents we found a private website the vendors had put up to market their house.
The rest was simple and we have no regrets.
Good luck.
Jim, have you already advertised your house on any of these sites? If yes, have you made the most of marketing it with good photos etc, as sometimes these can let you down if not.
Quite agree tigre, usually a lot of the so called agents, have dismally poor photographs . Make sure you tidy up, a few flowers around, take pictures on a nice fine day, blue skies etc. If you go down this route. What are the best features of your home, surrounding area, is the roof good? Heating? Distance to nearest town shop etc. List features with bullet points. Is the garden pretty ? Good luck!
I don’t mean to sound bossy! even if I am!
What area are you?
If Jim is who I think he is, he’s in Gourin (56), pinnycushion.
The situation here in France is very mixed. I would go through the Notaires site you will have to use them for the sale anyway. Equally, marketing the house yourself is sound advise. Some agents tend to focus on the Brits and this is a market that is pretty dead I guess given Brexit and the €/£ exchange rate.
You need to look at the broadest possible market not just the Brits. Good luck and critical features are; good pictures, useful description (heating, state of repair etc), proximity (rail, schools, hospitals, airports/ferry terminals etc). Ideally, put yourself in the shoes of a buyer and meet that need.
Good luck in the sale.
Leboncoin has been the most fruitful in terms of clients for my current place for sale. All have been genuine customers too, not like some of the ‘joyriders’ visiting with agents who just want to waste an afternoon.
There’s a company called ‘Immogo’, run by a dutch guy (nice chap) which has yet to provide a customer though the presentation of the property etc is very good. He also offers the translation into various languages which makes it more ‘european’ than leboncoin maybe.
Appreciate all those notes folks
After 4 years of sales effort, after nearly 25+agents( ? ), we work daily trying to make our home appeal to the potential buyer.
While not my favorite, green acres displays our stuff in a pretty way. Look at http://www.green-acres.com/en/properties/47052.htm if you are bored. Current project is getting our original notaire paperwork together for visiting a notaire in Guiscriff, which is about 10 miles down the road from Gourin.
Next after that, is another online property crowd with a global reach named http://www.privatepropertysellers.com Reports are they attract ppl to Brittany&France from as far away as Norway & USA. They claim to hit a global audience not just Brits&French, so we shall see. Will let you know how this one goes. They also construct youtubes & slow-mo videos of properties they support.
ImmoGo was unknown to us until Pete
kindly pointed that one out. Maybe if i can find their website, i’ll have a go, as we suspect the dutch and belgian housing is too dear for many of those ppl to retire. thanx to you all for the kind words,
You have a beautiful home Jim, I cannot understand why after all this time and effort, it hasn’t sold! Lovely garden, views and a beautiful solid looking house. Good luck !
Photos of the sous-sol showing the space available may appeal to those who are thinking workshop/craftroom when they’re looking.
Everyone tells us how lovely it is. How charming, how pretty etc. now we have repainted the inside to softer colours. We are ever having p.m.s Sent on face book asking why it has.not sold! What to do? We have no answer. We reduced it but that made no difference. We are trying PPS, private property sellers from UK! They advertise using videos, motion pics. And you tubes plus static pics. The area, perhaps, is somethimg of the problem, although town is growing. And is to be revamped.
As I’m sure you know, there is a link between Gourin and New York, not sure why, are there no American agents you can put it with?
Are other properties on the market in Gourin selling?
It’s a shame the French don’t have a company like Rightmove where you can get info on Sold houses in all areas of the UK, it gives you an idea what the housing market is like in areas you may be interested in buying/ selling.
Yes, we do identify big rooms in the celler as potentials games rooms, pool or table tennis. The wine celler appeals to some. Even more impressive is a ‘grenier’ room on top floor which we never could figure out what to do with. It is unfinished but huge. Had suggestions to make it into a large sitting room for parents, B&B visitors, ran out of ideas n money. :-p
hence ideas for income streams like AirB&B, chambre de hote’, B&B etc as here in Gourin there is a severe shortage of overnite digs to the pount where students in our 6 local schools have no dorms, so we thought of rentals as student digs for solid winter income stream.
How does your asking price compare with similar proerties in the area Jim ?
My place is big with 5/6 bedrooms and 238 m2 habitable surface area plus garage etc. My asking price is about right according to agents etc. though I will come down a bit. It is basically split into two flats tho’ it could quite easily be one big house. Half of it is advertised on airbnb and I get some bookings which helps to pay the bills etc. The location is superb with great views and i’m in a busy town with all services but in a quiet residential part.
I’ve been trying to sell for almost two years and have had visits plus an offer which I found a bit low (wish i’d have taken it now !)
The reasons my place hasn’t sold according to people who have visited are :
Too big, apparently no one wants a big family house any more because there aren’t many big families around nowadays.
Sloping garden.
View of HLMs across the other side of town which are visible if you look hard enough.
Neighbours too close !
Too far from the town centre (20 minutes walking or 1 minute in car)
I realise it’s counterintuitive, but I had trouble moving a large place I built in Scotland, was talking to a developer friend, asked him, “How much I should reduce it by”?.
“Don’t reduce it, put the price up”, I did, it sold
His reasoning , if you reduce it, “Oh there is something wrong with it”, is what people think.
Hi, we had a visit this morning from one of the three daughters from the family who grew up in the house.(The previous owners.) She looked pretty low and obviously was poor. She came to visit her old home and stood at the front door crying about the house she had loved. She knew it was for sale and that made her cry even more. She cannot afford it. I certainly felt for her sorrow. The family who had owned this house had been quite well off at one time. The father had died in a car crash just down the road which meant there was little income. Then madam sold the house to us in 2006 just before the building works began. She bought a small estate house on the other side of the town. On our first few days here, she came back to the house and with the key she had kept she let herself in and we found her upstairs. She scared us to death! She never did it again. We heard from our neighbour at the time that she visited her and longed to move back to the house here. She would stand in our neighbours kitchen and cry. She died at age 68 just 5 years ago. Our neighbour would not tell us how she died. Also, one of the three daughter’s young son died.
I take it they were once happy here but we do feel uneasy when faced with the past history of this house. I wish the daughter could afford to buy her old home back and find her happiness again. Anyway off to have a cup of tea, feeling uneasy having seen the poor lady so upset.
@Blue Velvet
If ever we sell and I hope we will I will be tempted to right about the house and the family etc. I do believe vibrations hang around and I do believe there is more to life than meets the eye.
Also wondering if any one of you have had a similar experience?
So true Bill. We have reduced this house enough. Anymore will confirm it is not a healthy home to buy. There are other homes for sale in this town at a higher asking price. We are offering this one at a pretty medium price. Good for you Bill – glad you did.
kindly pointed that one out. Maybe if i can find their website, i’ll have a go, as we suspect the dutch and belgian housing is too dear for many of those ppl to retire. 
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