Overseas Property Advertising

The Advantage of Selling Privately.

by Jon Kelway, September 2011

When I first decided to sell my house I was surprised at the level of fees French Agents charge. While this didn't concern me too much as a seller it did cause me concerns as to the impact it would have on a buyer, particularly an English buyer who was not used to paying 6% upwards. For my property which I was selling at 170,000€, this had an impact of 10,000€ on the buying costs and undoubtedly it would have meant agreeing to pay at least half of this myself to secure the sale.

I placed the property with the first agent in May 2010. In four months there were no viewings and no reply to emails, ever. So I gave up with them and placed it with a second agent who seemed more promising. However, although seemingly very efficient, in 9 months there were only two viewings and when I checked the website the photos selected as main photos were awful and wrong. Eventually I took my own photos and told her to use those. I then tried to negotiate a separate fee for managing any viewings I generated myself but she was not interested except at a very marginal reduction in her fee and so I did not agree to that.

I then thought about advertising myself online and saw the details of MagnoliaProperty.co.uk on the Internet in March 2011 and decided to try them. Placing an advert with them at last started to produce some enquiries and, more importantly, viewings. My neighbour kindly showed a couple of people around in May but then in July this year I had two viewing close together which I did myself. One of these has now resulted in a sale and today, 26th September 2011, I have the Compromis de Vente in front of me ready for signature. Taking the trouble to prepare my own details and photos and place them with an agency myself, in this case Magnolia, certainly produced far far better results in terms of enquiries and viewing than I thought it would. I had considered it as just another possible source of enquiries but in fact it was extremely effective and successful.

Jon Kelway, Brittany, France | September 2011 | View property