“More Information Please”

As you probably know if you use FranceHouseHunt at all, it is a free website. Totally free. We don’t charge for listings, we don’t charge commission if you sell a property, we don’t charge for emails and we don’t charge for featuring your property. We don’t charge at all.
As we have explained before this is because we got sick of paying extortionate prices to other property portals to advertise our properties. We wanted a way to get our properties seen by thousands of people without having to spend out thousands of € every month to various property portals. We also wanted other agencies and private sellers to be able to use the same facility at no cost to them. This is especially important at the moment with the property market as it is….we have to make savings wherever we can. Thus FranceHouseHunt was born.

We truly never in our wildest dreams expected to it to overtake some of the more ‘established’ French property portals. FranceHouseHunt has grown massive. This has led to its own problems. The site was intended to ‘run itself’. The site was meant to cost very little to run. And it would have ‘run itself’ and it would have been cheap to run IF it hadn’t grown so big so quickly.

We have had to move the site to a new server capable of handling the massive amount of traffic we get everyday - the server now uses over 20 gigabytes of space and uses 1-3 gigabytes of bandwidth every day. We now have to help, advise and answer questions from people buyers and sellers alike) throughout the day.
We have to maintain and update the site most days.
We have to work to ensure the site continues to rank well in the search engines (and to rank better). 
We work (or pay people) to develop new features for the site. 

This all costs money and time. 

Because the site has grown so much, without the support of our advertisers we would not be able to afford to run the site (we only make money from banner ads).

Without a resource like FranceHouseHunt you the property seller (whether an agency or private seller) would not be able to get the exposure your properties need without paying out money.
You would not get the quality leads we generate (i.e. we don’t attract people to the site who are looking for a recipe for French toast or a kir royale and who enquire about a property because they are curious but have no intention of taking it further).
You wouldn’t be getting as many visits to YOUR website/web-page (after all, how many of the other French property portals have a link directly to YOUR site from every one of YOUR listings?).

So, help us to help you. I know its a cliche and you’ve heard it before, but it is true in our case. Help to keep FranceHouseHunt free and get more visitors to the site so that YOU can benefit.

How can you help?

Add a link from your site to ours from somewhere (anywhere) on YOUR site. It can be a text link or a banner. It can be anything you like, please, just add a link. If you need a banner we do have some available HERE.

Thank you

In this very difficult economic period we wish to apologise to all agencies and private advertisers.

We want to say sorry that we are not able to give you any special offers. We want to say sorry that we can’t give you a ‘free period’ to advertise your property.

We can’t give you these ’special offers’ because it is already TOTALLY FREE to advertise your properties on FranceHouseHunt.com! 

But what we can give you is much more exposure for your properties, quality enquiries (i.e. not from people who were visiting the site to find a recipe for kir royale or French toast). Take a look, we’re number 1 on Google for many of the top key phrases.

Many people who are selling a house in France ask themselves whether or not they should sell their house through an immobilier (an estate agent in France).

So what are the pro’s and con’s of using an immobilier?

Pro’s

They know what they’re doing - first and foremost they know their market, they know the price the house should be marketed at, they know where to go to get potential buyers. They advertise your property (this point cannot be under-emphasised, immobiliers spend thousands of Euros advertising the properties on their books, reaching a far wider audience for your property than you could ever do…unless of course you have a very large marketing budget for your property?). They know the rules about selling/buying houses, they can advise clients on various aspects of buying your property (and believe me there are a lot of rules and regulations about buying a house in France you could spend years finding out about). They know which notaire to use or not use for the sale of a property - do you?

What about the statutory property checks - do you know where to go to get them done? Can you get them done as quick as an agency even if you do know where to go? And if you can get them done quickly do you know what checks need to be carried out on a property in a particular region (the checks differ by region)?

They know where to go for mortgages if a client needs one (thereby increasing your chances of selling your property), they know where to go for foreign exchange deals to help the buyer reduce the amount they have to pay out.

They deal with the day to day questions from potential buyers in a professional manner (well most do).

They can sell to both English speaking buyers AND French buyers, they know what each of the different cultures are looking for in a property (and those requirements are very different).

They have a large ‘footfall’ and can direct people who ’stop by’ the agency to properties they think may be suitable for that client (potentially YOUR property).

They help buyers with ’settling in services’ when they do buy - this is VERY important to most overseas buyers. Do you think you would know what to do and where to go?

Con’s

You have to pay commission. It’s a fact of life if dealing with an agency in France you will have to pay the commission.

They don’t know the house as well as you. But, if you take time to explain things and emphasise points to the agent when they come and look at your property they will take your points on board and use them.

You can advertise your property better than an immobilier - you could try advertising your property yourself but do you know where to go to advertise your property (apart from FranceHouseHunt of course)? Can you afford €60 to €150 per property advert that most internet sites out there are charging? Can you afford €150/month to advertise your property on Google out of your own pocket? Do you know the best place to list your property to get the most serious enquiries?

You’re not in control - well, if you want your property sold you will have to place some trust in an immobilier to help you to sell your property. They will also deal with the day-to-day ‘I’m just dreaming’ property enquiries (it can be very disheartening for a seller to deal with these enquiries).

Conclusion

So in conclusion an immobilier does a lot more than just slap up a photo in their shop window. The pro’s far outweigh the con’s. Do you think you could do all that an immobilier does (or even want to do it)?