So you’ve scoured the web, got a shortlist of properties with a few agents and you want to arrange the viewings. We originally arranged our viewing trip to Brittany towards the end of November 2006 but even the best laid plans never seem to quite work. I was called for jury service, normally a maximum of 2 weeks, about 5 weeks prior to our visit. Not a problem I thought, plenty of time before our visit. However I got called to a case which went on for 6 weeks, so that put paid to our first viewings trip. So with Christmas coming and January being a bad time at work we had to rearrange for February. The delay also gave us an opportunity to go to a French Property exhibition at Kensington Olympia.

We got back in touch with the agents towards the end of January to rearrange our trip for the middle of February. A couple of the houses we had shortlisted had gone from the market but most were still there. That shows you the pace of the market in Brittany, which is great when you’re buying and want time to mull things over but remember, when you come to sell, it will probably be the same so don’t expect a quick sale!

We arranged to go out on the Friday and come back Tuesday afternoon, giving us 3.5 clear days of viewings. We had three agents (Agence Arguenon, Agence Laforet and Breton Homes) and one private sale arranged, so the first day we arranged was the Sunday morning, being the most difficult as we had to find an agent willing to give up their Sunday morning. We kept the private viewing for the Sunday afternoon. We then gave one agent the whole of Saturday and another Monday morning. We wanted to keep Monday afternoon and and Tuesday morning free for second viewings.

It is vital that you ensure that you give agents plenty of time. The distances between houses can be quite large, even when you’ve tried to keep to a small area so don’t try and see five different agents in a day, it won’t work. It’s also really important to make sure you book your viewings well in advance, a few weeks at least, so you get to choose your days. Agents do most viewings by appointment and aren’t usually free for viewings if you just turn up. They can usually accommodate you later that day or the next, especially if you go out of season.

As we had decided on an area around Dinan for our house hunting we decided to stay in Dinan itself, which is an amazing medieval town, the picture at the top of this blog is of the port in Dinan. We found a lovely little studio apartment (the girls stayed with the grand parents as dragging them around lot’s of houses wouldn’t have been fun for any of us) right in the heart of Dinan. After a hectic days house hunting, we wanted to be somewhere where we  could just walk to a restaurant without worrying about a car, so we could relax and have the odd glass of vin rouge while mulling over what we had seen.

So you turn up at the agents with a pre-arranged  list of houses and the first thing they do is sit down and talk to you about what you want. This seemed a little odd at first, we had arranged the houses we wanted to see, we had come all this way and didn’t have much time and they just wanted to chat to us!

However it is important they do this, to find out what you really want. Some properties we loved from the details had a garden that wasn’t anywhere near the property or no garden at all, some had some interesting DIY done to them and, as we had decided on no major works, they were discounted. So in the end we saw about half the houses we thought we were going to see and half we had never seen before until they showed us the details in their office.

Prior to you visiting a property they will usually get you to sign a form saying that they have taken you to a property. This is because the house is on with multiple agents, so to stop you seeing it with one agent and then buying from another, or deciding to negotiate directly with the vendor, they have proof that they are the ones who first showed you the house. This is very standard procedure but not all of them did this. It does mean that if another agent shows you deatils of a house make sure you tell them if you have already seen it, even if you fancy another look!

Even though we kept our area small and the number of agents down we were still scheduled to see a lot of houses and the best investment you can make when doing this is a digital camera. When we got to a house we took lot’s and lot’s of photo’s, inside, outside and of any interesting views, good or bad. We made a note of the order in which we saw each house, so we could marry up the photos to the details, not always easy after seeing so many different houses!!

We also had our Tom Tom sat nav, so if we really liked a house we stored it’s GPS co-ordinates. Very handy for coming back later to look around the area. We also had a number of questions prepared that we asked if we really liked somewhere, practical things like heating, sewerage (in rural France most houses have a septic tank or Fosse Septique but there are new regulations that they have to conform to), tax’s (Taxe Foncière and Taxe d’Habitation) etc.

After the first day’s hectic viewing schedule we realised even more the sort of house we wanted and the sort of house we definitely didn’t. This was great, as we visited the next agent on Sunday we could articulate what we liked and what we didn’t so the houses we saw on Sunday we’re more like the ones we wanted. By Monday the poor agent we went to see kept showing us details and we had either seen it or one like it and had already discounted it. It did mean we didn’t waste their or our time seeing houses we knew we wouldn’t like and spent the precious time we did have seeing really good houses.

Keeping the Monday afternoon and Tuesday morning free for second viewings was great. There were a couple of houses we really liked with two different agents so we really needed to get back and see them, without seeing 8 other houses in the same day to cloud our minds. It also gave us time to explore the surrounding area, pop to the local village to see what it’s like.

While we were having a second viewing, around the house we actually ended up buying, some of the neighbours came out to talk to us along with a man who lived around the corner and whose mother used to live in the house. They were all really nice and very interested in who might be buying the house!

 It was very tiring but good fun and staying in Dinan was great as it gave us time to relax and feel like we were getting a little bit of a break.

So some handy tips for arranging the viewings and making sure you don’t get stressed out:

• Limit the number of agents - try to give an agent at least a morning or afternoon of your time, you’ll get a lot more out of them
• Arrange the next meeting - Let the agent know where and when your next meeting is so they can plan the order you see the houses to leave you near your next viewing
• Breaks - Make sure you plan time for a break, preferably lunch, to let your thoughts as well as your food digest, house hunting is very tiring (Remember, it can be quite difficult getting food outside of the standard 12pm-2pm lunch slot)
• Photographs- Take a digital camera and take photos of everything, inside and out
• Order - Make a note of the order in which you see the houses and the time so you can match the photographs up to the houses
• Standard Questions - Make a list of standard questions, you will forget to ask in the rush of the viewings, especially when you find the house of your dreams
• Sat Nav - if you have one make a note of where the houses you really liked are so you can look around the area after your viewings have finished
• Go Out of Season- House hunting out of season is a really good idea, it’s not hot and you spend a lot of time in a car, you get to see the area in the cold light of day so to speak, agents have more time for you, getting there is cheaper, accommodation is a lot more plentiful and the market is slower, so you can take your time.

So hopefully after a successful viewings trip you’ll find the house of your dreams, like we did, and you’re ready for the next step, signing the contract and the house buying process.

2 Bedroom Self Catering Cottage / Gite near Dinan, Brittany, France

Buying, Owning and Running a Gite in Brittany Blog

©Derek Arkwright 2007

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