Seal in Cognac (the singer not a local "plat du jour")

Sadly I didn't make it to see Seal headline the annual blues festival in Cognac last night.

The good news though is that one of my friends did and he's a far better writer than me - you can see his full report here http://pruningsfromthevines.blogspot.com/2010/07/seal-in-cognac.html

I like Andy's comment:

Aficionado's might say "it's not really the blues" but having been at the concert last night, I really don't think anyone in the deliriously happy audience cared!

I will need to drop in to Andy's place with a bottle of Chez Bacou VSOP as I've also stolen his picture (above).

The Charente Libre obviously thought that Seal was good too - you can read their review (in French) here.

www.cognacproperty.com

Special first class rail fares to France until August 31st

Just seen this article on the excellent Rightmove Overseas blog.

The sharp-eyed author has seen that Rail Europe are offering special 1st class fares from the UK to entice holiday makers onto the rail network.

Travel dates between July 13th and August 31st can be booked, with the tickets able to be purchased through until August 27th.

Travelling by rail from London to Angouleme is most enjoyable and it's easy to pick up a hire car at the station with Avis, Europcar and a host of other suppliers.

www.cognacproperty.com

Guest blogger - Jocelyn Le Trionnaire of Rightmove Overseas

"I'm from Brittany, and I live and work in Milton Keynes, 45 min from London. So writing about the property market in the Cognac area probably doesn't make much sense at first. Unless like me you enjoy (responsibly) a glass of Cognac XO once in a while, or maybe look after the French market for the property portal Rightmove.co.uk

I’ve been in this position 2 and a half years so I saw the effect of the recession with its properties not selling, agencies shutting down, and unfortunately some people losing their jobs. There was a lot said on it, and there is probably a lot more to say but right now I am just enjoying the fact that things are clearly improving on every front, which I can see on a day by day basis.

I hear my French agents looking for more properties, asking for more advertising, private vendors being more confident and putting their property for sale on Rightmove themselves, generally the market is bubbling since January 2010 and this is very positive.

Graham Downie pointed out the fact that the market right now is a little strange because prices are up and down across the board, which I agree with. When buyers come back there is always a period of time in which prices are uncertain before the market finds its balance. I am an optimistic person you see, and for me buying any property is always an investment (“la Pierre” as we say in French). It has ups and downs, but in the long term you always win.

So whether you buy in Normandy, Brittany, the Riviera or the Poitou-Charentes, which are all in my top 10 most searched areas (full reports here), you can’t go wrong.

I’ve studied in La Rochelle and visited the Cognac area myself, and this is a place where I would settle down, and look for a property to buy in a few years, but for now I’ll just go through the listings and dream of a better life. Maybe one of these, currently available on our website"?

Jocelyn Le Trionnaire
jocelyn.letrionnaire@rightmove.co.uk
Rightmove Overseas

UK house prices to fall says National Institute of Economic Research

A report in today's Daily Telegraph highlights the thin ice that the UK economy and housing market is skating on.

The National Institute of Economic and Social Research (NIESR) claims that house prices will fall, in real terms, by about eight per cent.

It means that after accounting for inflation, “real” house prices will have collapsed to 2003 levels by 2015.

Of course any kind of speculative forecasting like this is akin to a group of very intelligent people wetting their fingers and sticking them in the air to see which way the wind is currently blowing. Property forecasting is notoriously inaccurate.

What it could mean though is that people who have been hesitating over a move to France may well decide to take the leap. 

One of the things that concerned me before we came here in 2003 was that if we sold in England but wanted to go back after a couple of years how much more expensive housing would be.

Happily we have never looked back and with a "stagnant" UK property market maybe one or two others will now be tempted to do something similar without the fear of rampant house inflation to hold them back.

www.cognacproperty.com

France "bucks the trend" in Eurozone property

The RICS released quarter two figures today for their global property survey.

It's based on commercial property rather than residential but it does make quite comforting reading for those of us who make a living in France.

Indeed, the press release that accompanies the report says:

Significantly, France is bucking the negative Eurozone trend with more material signs of an upturn in sentiment towards real estate reflecting, in part, the relatively resilient performance from the domestic economy.

You can read the press release here or if you're feeling adventurous and have time on your hands can read the full report here.

www.cognacproperty.com

Chateau de Joinville brings back fond memories

A long, long time ago I worked for Jackson-Stops & Staff in Curzon St.

The PR director was a good friend and suggested that I take my then fiancée for a romantic week-end in Northern France.  Being "before kids" we could afford to do things like that.

We had a terrific time and so, as a treat, I planned a surprise visit there last week on our way back from the UK.

It was just as good as we remembered (although my memory isn't so great of anything that happened over 20 years ago) and for anyone looking for a romantic get away that's not too far from Calais, Boulogne or Dieppe it's ideal.

As you can see the kids thought it was great too and particularly liked our room which was, in fact, more of a house (the ancient four au pain).

You'll find the Chateau de Joinville in the beautiful town of Eu and can see their website here.

Heartily recommended.

www.cognacproperty.com

What is a "bargain" price

It's a strange market here in France at the moment.  Some vendors have slashed prices (from a silly starting point in most cases), some refuse to budge and - according to Century 21 at least - some have put prices up.

There's an online tool that helps you track individual house price changes on portals such as Se Loger and you can while away many an hour just browsing around.  I don't want to give away too many trade secrets on here but send me a direct email and I'll send you the url.

One terrific house that I visited recently has come down in price by over €100,000.  On the surface it looks as though it's now a real bargain but, of course, one can't automatically assume that this is the case.

It's my job to try and find other similar houses as "comparable evidence" so that between us my client and I can make a proper judgement as to whether it provides value for money.

I have a mandate going through where my clients had an offer accepted that was around €20,000 (8%) under the asking price.  The house had just come on the market and had been competitively priced and we think that we have struck an exceptional deal.

Don't be misled by dramatic falls in price or, alternatively,  put off by owners refusing to drop much.....research, research, research and then act decisively and you won't go far wrong.

www.cognacproperty.com

Top 20 ways of adding value to your home - Phil Spencer

It's easy to knock him but I have a lot to thank Phil Spencer for.

Before he and Kirstie Allsopp became TV stars nobody (other than the super rich) knew that buying agents existed.  Now pretty much everyone knows what we do and people understand that you don't need to have millions for us to be able to save you worry, time and money.

The Daily Telegraph has just run this story where Phil gives his top 20 ways of adding value to your home and it's a pretty sensible list too.

I won't repeat the article here - click the link and read it for yourself, just don't forget to come back - but I would like to highlight one of his "things to avoid":

Outgrowing your street

If houses in your street cost £250,000, don’t build an enormous extension and ask £400,000. People looking for a £400,000 house won’t want to live in a £250,000 street.

The same principle applies in rural France. 

Don't go over the top and spend a fortune doing up a house to the highest specification unless it's for your own long term benefit....you're unlikely to see a return on your investment when you come to sell.

I have seen a lot of people getting their fingers burnt by putting in top of the range pools and creating executive class gites.....maybe you'd see a return on the Cote D'Azur but in deepest Charente it's best to keep things simple.

www.cognacproperty.com

Charente property prices soar - hmmmm

I remember my Economics A level teacher writing "there are lies, damn lies & statistics" on the blackboard in Esher College and us spending a whole lesson discussing this (it was a double period too).

Century 21 have just published some research showing house price movements across France.

The Charente Libre roars:

The Poitou-Charentes region has experienced the biggest rise in property prices in the country in the past 12 months, according to a price survey. Between the first quarter of 2009 and the same period this year the price of older homes rose by 15.56% in this region, well above other areas.

You can see their full article here.

Now, I have blogged before about the impossible task it is to value property and track price movements here.  Volumes are too low and houses too disparate.

However, I would swear blind that the one thing they haven't done is gone up by 15% in the last 12 months and I don't know a single agent who would claim this privately or publicly.

Sorry Century 21 but I've been in this game for 25 years and this particular piece of research is about as worthwhile as a chocolate teapot.

www.cognacproperty.com

Daily Mail right about golf in France

Yet another mention in the national papers for yours truly - this time alongside my esteemed colleagues at Knight Frank & Cluttons.

The Daily Mail ran this article about buying properties on golf courses in France. I'm quoted as saying:

Does that mean owning a property abroad, close to a golf course, is out of reach for anyone but the very rich?

'That's not true, if you are prepared to think independently and get away from the purpose-built developments,' says Graham Downie, of FrenchEntree Property Services.

'It's a mystery why golfers feel the need to flock together and pay for the privilege of living next to people from the same country. I would recommend buying a place near to The Royal Medoc club in Bordeaux. This is a golfers' paradise - civilised and quiet.

'For £250,000 you could pick up a fine home with a swimming pool - and enjoy the real France.'

I absolutely believe it too.  Having played golf on the finest courses in Spain & Portugal I'd say that those in France are quieter and equally as good.  Property is far better value too where you could pick up a house with private pool for less than a small apartment with shared facilities on the costa del sol.

www.cognacproperty.com

London Standard - Brits are moving to the charente...

Nice to see some comments from yours truly in this article from the Homes & Property section of the London Standard.

"Brits want old Charentaise stone houses with pool and views over the vines," says Graham Downie of Cognac Property. Outside Cognac a four-bedroom house costs £139,250 though Downie suggests budgeting £217,280 to £261,100 for a detached property with views. "In Cognac or Jarnac a two or three-bedroom town house costs £87,030, or £130,550 for something special," says Downie.

I did get castigated by my friend Tim (who as MD of the most profitable ad agency in the WPP empire should know his stuff) for using the word "Brits".  He says:

"By the way, using the phrase 'Brits' is the equivalent of saying trap (instead of bunker) or calling it the British Open - hang your head".

My apologies to all - I blame Samantha Fox and Mick Fleetwood.

www.cognacproperty.com

Rightmove chairman sells £8 million of shares

Reports today that Ed Williams, the founding MD of Rightmove, has sold just under £8 million of shares in the company. This represents around half of his holding.

My feeling is that this is indeed the right move for Mr Williams as it (coincidentally?) coincides with the ratcheting up of the marketing for the Google property portal.

Rightmove is such a dominant force in the UK residential property scene that I can't see it being knocked off its' number one perch for a while.  However, I certainly can see a seismic shift in the medium term and much will depend upon the appetite of Google and what size slice of the pie it wishes to consume.

Andrew Barber and his team at Revolution:PR have written a most interesting article on this whole debate and you can read their thoughts here.

Meanwhile if Mr Williams is looking for a safe haven for his £8 million there are one or two decent investment properties around the Cognac area that look a better bet than the volatile stock market or the over-valued UK property arena.

www.cognacproperty.com

Three Peaks challenge to be tightest ever

Forget the world cup....the biggest tournament this week is going to be the annual Three Peaks golf challenge.

Following the sensational drawn match in Biarritz last year the teams will be arriving at the Gloucester Hotel & Country club on Wednesday.

I often use the famous Gary Player quote "The more I practice the luckier I get" which I think has a wider context than just on a golf course.  It stems from a time when he holed out from a bunker during a competition.  A journalist subsequently called him lucky and Player took umbrage.  He explained that he had built a practice bunker in his garden and kept hitting hundreds of shots each day until he fully expected to hole out each time he took his stance.

Sadly, this year I have been too busy to undertake any kind of practice at all and I fear that my golf will reflect this.

It's the first time in twenty years that I will be entering a tournament so ill prepared and I just have to hope that muscle memory kicks in and that a positive mental attitude will see me through.

I'll let you know how it goes.

www.cognacproperty.com

International buyers heading back to France

Apologies for the lack of posts but I have been busy.  Regular readers will know that I have half a dozen active search mandates and I'm currently negotiating two house acquisitions on behalf of clients.

Good news from one of my colleagues in the FrenchEntrée Property Finders network who has just been mandated to find a €6 million house for an international buyer.

This follows hot on the heels of a €1.2 million acquisition by Rebecca Russell in Nice on behalf of one of her overseas clients.

It's still not the heady days of the mid-noughties but things are certainly picking up.

www.cognacproperty.com

The chasm between sellers/buyers expectations still needs to be bridged

Regular readers know that I'm 100% on the side of the buyer throughout the search and transaction process.

There's no grey area - my clients appoint me because of my expertise in sourcing property and buying it at the lowest price possible.

One of the most important parts of my job then is to ensure that my clients have realistic expectations about what their money will buy and the current state of the market.

With our TV and computer screens full of bad news stories it's easy to fall into the trap of thinking that property vendors are on their knees and willing to accept huge discounts on the asking price of their properties.

Sadly, this simply isn't true...at least in my particular slice of France.

Sure, most sellers are realistic and are open to offers but a general 20-25% reduction on all asking prices, forget it. 

In the last two deals that I have been involved with we have managed to obtain around 15% from the asking price....and both of those were after a great deal of negotiation and our introduction of "comparable evidence" (research into the cost of similar properties).

Of course there will always be stories about the man who has a friend who knocked 40% off the asking price of a house but these rarely stand up to scrutiny (usually the price was hugely inflated in the first place).

It's a buyers market and there are bargains to be had but don't be fooled into thinking that all vendors will bend over backwards.

In this market "research, research, research" is almost as important as "location, location, location".

www.cognacproperty.com

Come to the charente and get off that treadmill

One of the biggest reasons for our move from suburban life in the UK was to find a slower pace of life.  We had both worked in central London for years and never seemed to have a second to ourselves and to "smell the flowers" as Walter Hagen so aptly put it.

We found our dream in the Charente.  Sure there are times (like at the moment) when I'm working hard and out viewing houses from dawn to dusk but it's a pleasure and there's always time to stop for a coffee along the way.

Don't just take my word for it though. This article in the Charente Libre explains that Segonzac is the first town in France to be awarded "Cittaslow" status. Wikipedia describes this as:

Cittaslow is part of a cultural trend known as the Slow movement.

The inspiration was the Slow Food organization. Cittaslow's goals include improving the quality of life in towns while resisting "the fast-lane, homogenized world so often seen in other cities throughout the world"

I, for one, don't miss grabbing a burger at Waterloo before catching the 11.58pm train back to Walton on Thames....fortunately, this particular hamster jumped off the wheel and left the cage a while ago!

www.cognacproperty.com

Trick photography doesn't help anyone

It's a beautiful, sunny day here in the rural charente valley, just the kind of afternoon when I should be thanking my lucky stars that I'm not stuck in a west end office thinking about the commute home.

Sadly though I'm seething.

Technology is changing my business, mostly for the better. However, I do now regularly get emails from clients saying "seen this on the internet and it looks great, can you check it out".

Of course, I'm usually happy to do so and it's good that I work with such serious and involved buyers.  The bad news is that virtually without exception the fantastic looking "maison de maitre" for €150,000 is blighted.

The wonderful photography, taken with a wide angle lens, skillfully makes 500m2 look like a couple of acres or conveniently stops just short of showing the lorries streaming down the N10 towards Spain and Portugal.

I was out this afternoon visiting one such house - it bore no resemblance to the details on the internet and even whilst driving up I knew I'd just wasted my time going there.  I understand that agents & owners want to market the positive attributes of their property but come on, let's keep things realistic.

Finally a true story.  Friends were over from England last week and went into the estate agents that are selling their holiday home.  They saw the details in the window but with a photo of the wrong house.

When quizzed the agent said:

"I know but it's in the same road as yours and it's much prettier".

www.cognacproperty.com

Demand for French property on the up.

Now, I don't want to tempt fate but......

As regular readers will know the demand for French property from international buyers fell off a cliff the day that Lehman Brothers hit the dust in September 2008.

It's been consistently low since then but, at last, the buyers seem to be flooding back. Well, if flooding back is a slight over emphasis it's certainly a steady stream.  My business is all about quality of clients not quantity and I rarely have more than three client searches on the go at any one time.

For the record I am currently mandated as follows (these aren't their real initials of course but I promise they are genuine clients):

• Mr & Mrs A who are looking for a 3 bed country house with barns and gite potential.
• Mr & Mrs B who have mandated me to find a 5 bed house with space for their teenage children
• Mr & Mrs C who are desperate to find a characterful old house that they can bring back to life
• Mr & Mrs D who want a classical charentaise house that they can retire to
• Mr & Mrs E who's dream is a property with views of the vines, a pool and a sunny terrace.

I'm working flat out and have a couple of other clients "bubbling under" who are talking about instructing me to find them something this summer.

These instructions have come from all kinds of different sources - this blog, my recent coverage in the Daily Telegraph, my affiliation with FrenchEntrée and my regular musings in French Property News and French magazine.

I know that straw polls like this don't quite carry the same credence as the BBC/Mori exit poll but I'm sure you get my drift.

Long may it continue.

www.cognacproperty.com

Cycling in the charente valley

Can't think of a better way to start off a Sunday morning - left the senior partner having a well deserved "grace matinée" and met up with Paddy on the bridge in Jarnac.  The charente was sparkling in the early morning sunlight and the town was slowly wakening with locals making their way to the market to pick up their bread & croissants.

We set off through the vines and, not for the first time, chatted about how lucky we are to live amongst the rolling hills of what must be one of the prettiest areas of France.  No traffic in sight on the back roads either...just the occasional farmer out on his tractor and a rush of "bonjour's" as we passed a swarming pack of real cyclists on their way to Cognac and out towards the coast.

We're working our way up to something similar too - it would be a huge trek for our strictly amateur muscles but with the sun on our backs and the thought of a leisurely lunch when we get there we're confident of tackling it soon.

Meanwhile we're content to take it easy, soak up the spring sunshine and revel in the fact that neither of us will be on the 6.42 am into Waterloo tomorrow.

www.cognacproperty.com

"This is money" article - Can a buying agent save you money?

Interesting article on This is Money which you can read here.

"If you are serious about moving it's hard to see the flaws"

I'm not sure that people still see buying agents as being just for the super-rich - thanks to Phil,  Kirsty and others that view seems to be a thing of the past.

If I was moving a long distance in the UK I would certainly use a buying agent, if I were buying a property in a different country with additional linguistic, legal and cultural barriers then it's clearly a "no brainer".

We may not have "super powers" but we certainly know our local market and you'll be safe in the knowledge that we are acting solely for you and not the seller.

One final thought on the idea mentioned of taking a fee as a percentage of the saving made (in this case 15%). 

Yesterday morning I sent a client a shortlist of houses I'm suggesting he visit when he comes out.

Top of the list is a house that is being marketed for €330,000.  His budget is €250,000 and I sent it to my client as I know that the owners would accept this. 

In the "buyers" market that currently exists I think it's far fairer to take a simple percentage of the purchase price.

Mind you, the client is always right so if anyone wants to work with me on this basis then I'm happy to hear from them!

www.cognacproperty.com