Since we put the apartment on sites like LeBonCoin, we have had many estate agents contacting us to to ask if we would sign a mandate with them. Few agencies insist on an exclusive mandate, but there are many who would like to have the chance of selling Le Pierrotin to one of their customers.
In the end, we have decided to sign with Patrick Limet, from Efficity who has been very impressive. It is Efficity that provided the detailed estimations for the price of the apartment that you can find elsewhere on this site.
Patrick has decided to put an announcement for the apartment on their website
The asking price is €550,000 which is roughly half way between the estimated top end price generated by Efficity (around €483,000) and our initial price of €650,000.
But Patrick agrees that the our apartment is very special, and could definitely trigger a "coup de coeur" - very much like the one I had when we decided to buy the apartment back in 2016. It seems incredible, but I only visited one apartment! I saw it, and said, this is the one for me!
Note also, that Patrick's price also includes his agency fees of €25,000 (around 5%). So if he finds someone prepared to pay €550,000, we would get €525,000 - which may seem a lot less that our initial proposition.
But, don't forget that starting on the 1st March, our asking price will be dropping by €1000 every day until we find a buyer. And so, I can state today that, if we don't get a better offer, the price will have dropped to €525,000 in precisely 125 days, starting on the 1st of March. I have set up a Google Sheet here, that shows that we will reach that price on the 4th July 2025.
This is actually very close to the typical 3-month lag that it takes between the moment that a buyer shows an interest in buying a property and the date at which we would sign a binding sales agreement ("compromis de vente").
So it all fits fine!
We have agreed with Patrick that if we can find another buyer prepared to pay us more than the €525,000 that we would get by selling via Efficity, then he would understand that we would choose the better price.
For example, if someone offered €526,000, that person would be able to sign on the 3rd of July (and also avoid the agency fees)/
Of course, if that happened, Patrick's buyers could decide up increase their offer to match (and I would agree to give them priority. Alternatively, Patrick might decide to reduce his agency fee. Or there might be a combination of the two.
What is sure is that we will not be giving any other agencies a mandate to sell the apartment. Patrick has a set of keys and can show the apartment to his clients - after first checking that there are no AirBNB guests in residence. But we have block booked every Sunday night until we sell the apartment, which means that he will always be able to show the apartment to clients between around midday on Sundays till around 15h on Mondays. Of course, the concierge people are unlikely to have done the cleaning very early if the guests only leave on Sunday morning.
In the meantime, can I just remind anyone reading this that if they would like to save themselves around €25,000 in agency fees, they can contact me directly at simonjthorpe@mac.com!
You can also find out just how wonderful Le Pierrotin is by booking a couple of nights (or more) via AirBNB, Booking.com or any of a wide range of alternative sites.
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