House Viewing in France: Two Houses in One Day
After the 4th house visit debacle, we carried on house viewing in France as a pair of more experienced buyers. On the same day we changed our mind on the 4th house, we visited the 5th and the 6th houses. Would one of them, as the French would say, be un coup de coeur, capture our heart?
5th House Visit
We named the 5th house the Cat House. The 107m² house was located in Mondétour, a neighbourhood in Orsay, about 2km from Orsay centre, where we currently live. The proprietor of the Cat House had five cats, three of which took the place of their absent owner to welcome us into their house. The unwavering stares from these felines on us as we toured their house made us feel like we were intruding on their privacy (which we were!).
The LF agent who helped us to sell our Orsay apartment three weeks back showed us this house. Ever since he sold our apartment (and earned a fat commission from it), we had been harassing him to help us with our house search.
Of all the five houses we had seen so far, the Cat House was the most aesthetically pleasing. A neat little garden welcomed us as we entered the front gate. A walking path with garden gnomes scattered along it cut through the garden and led us to the front door.
The front door opened onto a living room that enjoyed plenty of the mid-spring sunlight. Bookshelves lined with history books and a few tapestries on the wall depicting scenes from the Middle Ages were the main déco in the living room. The kitchen was small but homey, and it came with a veranda overlooking the back garden. There, the trees each had a birdhouse perched on top. The house also came with an independent building that could be transformed into a studio, or a workshop. Last but not least, the house was totally liveable immediately. No refreshing work was foreseen except perhaps for a new coat of paint.
The Catch: Its Location
We had a crush on the Cat House itself, but not the location. For one, the house was relatively far from the train station (20 min uphill). It was also quite far away from the nearest woods, which meant it was harder for us to trail run. Aeroplane noise pollution might affect us since the house was near the Orly Airport flight paths. In addition, we did not like the neighbourhood planning (houses were aligned in blocks, like an American suburb). It also had a high population density (relative to Orsay).
Moreover, we understood that there had already been a few house visits before ours that morning. Clearly, the Cat House would appeal to many people. Thus, even if we were to offer au prix, without any negotiation, the earlier visitors would have priority. After considering the above, we decided to move on to the 6th house.
6th House Visit
The LF agent also showed us the 6th house. It was in Cyprenne, another neighbourhood in Orsay, a two-minute drive away from the Cat House. In fact, the Cyprenne house was separated from the Cat House by a few blocks, on the other side of the main road. However, just because it was a couple of blocks away, the houses in this quarter generally commanded slightly higher prices.
Even though the 6th house was more expensive, we were more interested in it than the Cat House, mainly because of its location. The disadvantages relating to the Cat House location were absent (almost) from this house. It was next to the woods and nearer to the train station (still a walk of 15 min uphill). It also had a less blocky neighbourhood planning and a lower population density. In fact, we could get to the centre of Orsay in ten minutes just by cutting through the woods next to the house. I could imagine Silviu running through the woods every Saturday morning to go to our favourite Orsay boulangerie and get us some just-out-from-the-oven buttery croissants.
Inside the Cyprenne House
The house itself was not as cosy-looking as the Cat House, but we still liked it. The current owners had extended the house many years ago. When you entered the house, you could easily distinguish the older part of the house (built in the 1920s) from the more recent addition. For instance, the corridor on the first floor, underneath the bedrooms, was narrower; its ceiling was lower; wooden beams supported part of the older structure. These features contributed to the quaintness of the house. Similar to the Cat House, this house enjoyed lots of natural light and the bedrooms were of a decent size.
However, one drawback of the house was the renovation cost we had to put up. The biggest component of the cost came from the kitchen. The existing kitchen was tiny. Since both Silviu and I spent a lot of time in the kitchen, spacious was the key word here. That would mean we would need to extend the kitchen into the garage space. As for the rest of the house, it needed a lot of work. We would need to fix the cracks on the walls and redo the dingy toilets and bathroom. On top of that, we would replace the old, weary-looking fitted carpets with parquet floor and repaint the entire house.
An Unreasonably High Asking Price
Despite our interest in the house, we could not and did not want to rush with the offer. Firstly, we were still tied to our offer for the 4th house. Secondly, being wiser and more cautious this time, we wanted to estimate the potential renovation cost before making an offer. Thirdly, based on our research in this area and after taking into account the Covid-19 price bump, we believed that the asking price was unreasonably high, and that was assuming no substantial renovation was needed. The Cyprenne neighbourhood was known to be more expensive. Even so, we did not believe that a 9% higher asking price relative to the ready-to-live-in Cat House was justifiable.
We questioned the LF agent about the logic behind the seemingly unreasonably high price. After our insistent questioning, and perhaps because of our prior relationship (selling our apartment), he was candid with us. He revealed that the asking price was indeed higher than the estimated market value. The current owners quoted the price despite his advice against it; the former were not in a rush to sell the house. They already had a house in Brittany and just wanted to sell this house and retire definitively there.
Making an Offer
A couple of days after our visit to the Cyprenne House, we contacted the LF agent for a second visit. This time, we wanted to bring a renovator to estimate the cost. In the end, exactly a week after our first Cyprenne House visit, we offered to purchase the house for a price lower than the asking price, even lower than that of the Cat House.
After four days of deliberation, the seller came back with a counteroffer which we considered still quite high, mainly because of the foreseeable renovation cost. On the same day, we replied with an ‘in-between’ price, the average of our initial offer and their counteroffer. Hélas, our offer was not accepted.
Back to House Viewing in France
One thing we learned from the Cyprenne house buying experience was the confirmation that the O agent from the Palaiseau house (the 4th house) was not professional. The key element that separated the two agents was customer service. The LF agent was prompt in his correspondence. It took four days before we got an answer from the seller, but the LF agent had made sure that we were updated regularly.
In the same week, during the ‘ding-dong’ with the sellers, we continued to search for houses. Just because we had made an offer on a house, it did not mean that we could rest on our laurels. After our experience with the 4th house, we told ourselves that we would rather risk spending a longer time in the house search, and perhaps even rent a house while continuing with our search, than jump on the first available house.
That said, it seemed that the housing market was getting livelier during that period. We managed to secure two more house visits — the 7th and 8th — for the day after we counteroffered with the ‘in-between’ price.
7th House Visit
So, on the first Saturday of March, we ventured out with the hope that we would strike gold with one of the two houses we were visiting. Our first visit was at 11:30 in Gif-sur-Yvette. This house had only gone up on seloger.com the day before. Since we frequently combed through this popular residential real estate website, Silviu called up the agent for an appointment the moment he saw the new posting for this 7th house.
Based on the available online information, the house needed quite a bit of renovation, but it had an ideal location and sat on a substantial piece of land. It was situated in Gif-sur-Yvette, one of the neighbouring towns that we really liked, a stone’s throw away from the woods and 10 minutes from the nearest train station.
For a house in this area and of that size, we were surprised to see a price that seemed to be below the market value. There were two possible reasons: either the agent did not do his due diligence on the house valuation, or the house was indeed in shambles and needed a total makeover.
A Crowd at the Gate
We got to our appointment a few minutes in advance and waited before the big, closed gate. From the entrance, we could see 4 or 5 people, in two distinct groups, standing outside the house. They were talking among themselves, and occasionally pointing at the building. They had to be the visitors before us. I was surprised to see a group of such size. In these times, usually a tour was limited to two visitors and an agent. We guessed that the two sets of visitors might have overlapped.
At the scheduled time, one member of the group, presumably the agent, walked towards the gate and in a harried tone, asked us the reason for our presence. After we told him about our appointment, he stated, in his not very friendly way, that he had already received two offers from the morning visits. He said that we could still proceed with our visit if we liked; however, in his not very subtle way he let it be known that our visit would be pointless. French customer service… or the lack of it, seemed to have become the norm in our house search.
Indignant at being brushed away, yet not wanting to waste more time on a fruitless visit, we left without further ado. We were going to be early for our next visit, which was just a few blocks away, at Gometz-le-Châtel. The 8th house visit deserves a separate post.