You show me yours and I will show you mine....

Tuesday 24 March 2015

Cold and raining 8 degrees

I work in 'partenariat' with another local agent so this morning I showed her one of mine and she showed me one of hers.  This involved an early start as she is juggling the demands of a very young child and an artisan husband who expects two cooked meals on the table every day.  Apparently the 21st century hasn't quite arrived in this part of the world.  

I get there at 9 am and she is just upstairs, cleaning her teeth and 'putting on her face'.  I sit myself down in the kitchen and listen to the heavy chunking click of the wall clock and the periodic drip of the tap in the sink.  There are some fabulous oil paintings of cockerels on the back wall and underneath, a large country style dresser piled up with paraphernalia of daily life; books, bills, wax crayon drawings, greetings cards, keys.  P arrives in a rush and we climb into my car and head out into the morning drizzle.

The first house is just 20 minutes away and the owner lets us in.  He is wearing a waist belt and had a trapped nerve in his back.  His face is pale and he has lost a lot of his habitual bonhomie.  The house is 18th century with interior exposed stone walls and high ceilings with beams blackened by age and many fires.  The kitchen is bright and has lovely railway white oblong tiles running over the thick wooden slab worktops.  A fire burns in the hearth and the immense TV is showing news of the Airbus crash over the French Alps.  Everyone lost.  We finish the visit in a mood of shock.

The next house is 44 kms away and we talk about statutes.  This is how the work regime is described over here.  P says that she managed to go onto auto entrepreneur status but it was very complex.  Her accountant ('a real cowboy - I met him in a bar') advised her that she needed to cancel her status as an independent commercial agent, which attracts massive social charges (see yesterday's post) and then she would be able to re register as AE (auto entrepreneur).  This she did but when she went to see the relevant government dept, she was told she couldn't re register for a whole year.  As she was still working for her former agency at the time, she was aghast.  The fonctionnaire (white collar worker) pulled out a piece of paper saying that there were exceptions to the rules and one of these was registering as a 'presenter of services', so that is what she became until setting up her own agency and becoming a limited company.

She also told me about a 'friend' who is a banker and with whom she opened her new business account.  Her website provider is in the UK and has to be paid in pounds sterling. Her banker friend was charging her 54 euros for each monthly transfer from euros into sterling in order to pay these fees.  Her calls and emailed were ignored.  She is still with him.  I would have fired him off in no uncertain terms.

My phone keeps ringing with the would be buyers of the house in my town.  I have stopped answering their calls.  Ask P for her opinion as to their case and she says they are in a very poor position and the other agent is sitting pretty.  Oh dear, that is what the notary also said.

We arrive at the second house and it is a wonderful farmhouse so far from the road that I may never find it, and ideal for my road averse clients.  The owner arrives with her son, who is autistic, and highly up on all the facts, figures and dates relating to the property.  The poor lady has had a life filled with tragedy, her husband being killed in a road accident and her eldest son nearly being killed in the same spot a year later, and still having problems with infections and relapses.  S is petite and immaculately turned out, her pale chestnut hair swept into a smooth chignon and pale skin stretched over a fine bone structure.  We trot around the house and I really need to pee.  I ask permission, test that the water is on, and bliss, am left to relieve myself.  Alas, discover that the flush doesn't work.  Come back downstairs and the autistic son says, very loudly, did I notice that the flush was broken. Feel embarrassed.

Stop off for coffee on way back.  P asks if I miss my children, far away in the UK.  Feel suddenly tearful.  Yes, is the answer, always and forever no matter how old they will be.

Back home for very quick lunch and then south to a walled bastide town hanging onto a hill above a torrential and pounding river.  The GPS takes me around many roads, none of which are right so the owner has to come and find me.  His property is surprisingly large, with room after room after room and I suddenly feel very tired.  We go into an overheated salon and he serves me luke-warm coffee and tells me that he has no life, the business is exhausting and he wants to sell and have children with his wife.  I tell him that children are also very tiring and they are impossible to sell on....  For the price he wants, his property is also impossible to sell on.

Drive to local town in search of cake and obtain a very large pain aux raisins stuffed with massive fruits and pearls of sugar for myself and a lemon tart for OH.  Back home in heavy rain and have to do lots of emails.

Spend evening with OH watching YouTube videos of men with very strange West Country accents, fishing off the rocks of the Bristol Channel and I start loading details of craft group ladies into the Mail Chimp software.   Easter is coming up fast on the rails and I have promised them a newsletter.  Three ladies have come forward with articles, fortunately, so I don't have to write the whole sodding thing myself.

Dog is looking very tired after spending last night in the outhouse.  He can smell a lady dog in the vicinity and spent the whole night barking.  At his age, he really should know better.

The difficulties of finding the dream - when the dream keeps changing...

Saturday 24 January 2015

3 degrees with brilliant sun later

A more civilised start today.  Down to pick up clients at 9.30 and they are already up and about and ready to roll.  

First house is 15 kms from our town and is a new house in an old shell.  The mountain views are absolutely stupendous.  Their snow is deep and crisp and pink in the morning light.   The owner has come back from Switzerland to open up.   The clients go back to being reserved and withdrawn.

Head off to another house and again, don't get a lot of feedback.  They pop into a room and say 'ok' and then come out again.  With all clients, I do a sit down run through at the end and it will be especially valuable with these two.

We arrive at our final house and it appears that finally, we may be approaching something they like.  It is chocolate box pretty and is being sold by a partner agent, who is there and waiting when we arrive.  The owners are away, and I am surprised to see another Maine Coon.  They are popping out of the woodwork everywhere.

The couple spend a lot of time in the garden and admire the wonderful snow capped peaks. The other agent and I start to feel optimistic.

I take them to a nearby bar and we do the run through.  The man takes the opportunity to show me on his phone pictures of a property on which they just missed out, last year.  It bears no resemblence whatsoever to what I have been showing them.  Feel miffed.  They have been looking for a number of years and, running through the houses we have seen with them, I can see why.  Their criteria have evolved.  It transpires that the man likes the first house we saw today, and the lady the third one.  Alas, ours is way down on their preference list.   Have a hot chocolate and then they leave to go down to the mountains.

I go home.  It is 2.30 and OH thinks I have made progress.  There is a possibility of revisiting Monday with the clients so all is not yet lost.   They then ring at 8 pm and say that they have decided to go to their friends up in France, many hours north, as from tomorrow morning.  So no more revisits and they will be back in early March.

Try and catch up with the clients from earlier in the week - the man has gone to rugby and the lady says that his partner will be buying his house in the UK so there is a lot to sort out. On the positive side, means that the man can make his own decision and the partner won't have to come over to see the properties as well.

Ring all the owners of the properties visited, leave feedback, update the software system and arrange some appointments for next week.

I find a bottle of korma sauce in the cupboard and make fish curry.

It has been a long day.  Watch 'Meet Me in Saint Louis'.  OH is big fan of Judy Garland

thank you wikipedia

Another fragile Gemini with many marriages, and ultimately an early death with drugs and alcohol.  It is fortunate for you and I, dear readers, that fame has not yet carried me off.  I am always ready to be famous however, and promise to handle it sensibly.

How big is a Maine Coon?

Thursday 22 January 2015

Icy with bright sun later

Wake up with sick headache and churning stomach.  OH offers me his universal cure - surprisingly effective.

Go to meet a representative of a French bank.  Lovely lady who I have not seen in yonks. We have coffee in the art deco hotel in town and she is wowwed by the stunning plasterwork and chandeliers.  She shows me notaires stats for purchases throughout the country and the surprising development is how many Belgians are now buying.  Italians and Russians still prevalent in the Capital and the far south.  My area is, as I am well aware, one of the most expensive but I was surprised at how very low the values are in the more central locations.  Interest rates very low and I need to start suggesting them to cash buyers who may not have thought of using this option.

Back home to some more manic cleaning and then to completion in early afternoon.  Arrive a minute before the appointed time at the notaires and find that I am the only one there. Purchasers arrive ten minutes late, and are excited at becoming owners.  Seller's proxy is even later and I discover that she has already given the purchasers the key and that they are moving in, as we speak.   Tell her that this is not the norm and she says 'oh fuck it'. Must stop associating with these foul mouthed mature ladies.  She then presents the purchasers with a bill for the fuel oil, which was not previously included in any of the documentation, and is for a substantial sum.  Purchasers are somewhat taken aback but fortunately pay up.

Notary is one with whom I haven't worked before.  He likes the sound of his own voice and prattles on about the seismicity of the Region.  The buyers come from an area which has no seismicity.  The lady purchaser turns to me and asks how long have I have lived here and I tell her that it is x years and I have never felt a tremor.  Notary assures them that the earth is trembling all the time and everyone is thinking 'shut the hell up'.  I manage to divert him back to the signature and all goes smoothly.   Go back to the house with the now new owners and read the meters.  Many members of the family already there and two huge lorries full of stuff.  Self moving.  Meet the dogs.  The cats are hiding in the toilet - one is a rare Maine Coon with ears like a lynx.  Also known as an American longhair, they are the largest breed of domesticated cat.

 thankyou Daily Telegraph

Couple in rental unit ring and say that they are leaving at 8 am and can I come and get the keys at 7.45.  I have a full day's viewings tomorrow.  I turn into foul mouthed mature lady and pass out on sofa at 10 pm.