Reduced French Property

Can you resist our Reduced French Property pages? We’ve programmed them to automatically pick up any price drops and display the original asking price alongside the new (or most recent) price.

However, a reduced price doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re getting a bargain! The original asking price may have been opportunistic and even the new price might be optimistic (over-riding the estate agent’s valuation for example). The vendors may just be testing the market and will drop to the ‘correct’ price as their own urgency changes. So, a reduced French property doesn’t necessarily imply you’re getting a good deal or dealing with a desperate vendor – as always Caveat Emptor or ‘Buyer Beware’.

Valuing a property is never an exact science - as with everything a property is worth only what someone is prepared to pay for it - but valuing a French property can be even more problematic.

Whereas the UK has many ‘identikit’ properties where whole rows of streets (or even areas) have almost identical houses, French houses are often unique. So while a UK agent can often value a property based on how much next door sold for (adjusting for condition) valuing a French property can be much more subjective. This can work to your advantage if you ‘value’ features of a property that the vendors and agents gloss over.

Don’t just assume that because a property has ‘languished on the market’ for a year or two that the vendors are desperate to sell. French vendors are traditionally in less of a hurry – especially in rural areas. Here a chain can be a rarity and without this ‘onward pressure’ vendors are sometimes happy to hold out for close to asking price.

Having said all of this, if one of our reduced French properties really catches your eye and you’re considering viewing or putting in an offer then it’s critical to know how long it’s been on the market and how its asking price has evolved. All French Property Centre properties show the date the property was first marketed with us at the top of the particulars page under ‘Date Added’.

As a general ‘rule of thumb’ you offend no one in France by putting in an offer of 10% less than asking price, it’s an acceptable ‘opening gambit’ with the agent who will know if a given property is already at the ‘right price’ or not.

You should also be guided by market conditions of supply and demand – if the supply of housing stock is low (for example lots of vendors are currently sitting tight because of the Covid pandemic) then there is more competition between buyers for fewer properties and this often means sales at asking price!

The converse is also true: if there’s a glut of supply (for example if interest rate hikes or employment insecurity hits demand from buyers) then there’s less competition between buyers and a ‘cheeky offer’ is more likely to be taken seriously or at least be the start of negotiations.