Recommendations for a website for renting a house

Property & Home
1

Hello Everyone,
I recently joined the forum and plan to move to France with my wife in the next few months.
First, I plan to rent a house near Angouleme so I will scout the area for a few months before I decide to buy our forever home.
I tried to browse a site like “le bon coin” but it asks for a French phone number to be able to register. Do you know any similar sites I can browse from the UK so I can do my homework before I start talking to estate agents face to face?
Thanks a lot for your replies. :slight_smile:
Phil.

2

Hi there. Firstly, welcome to the site :wave:

You could try:

Se Loger
Bien Ici
ParuVendu
PAP.fr

Also try some of the big estate agents’ sites such as Century 21, Orpi, Human Immo, IAD, etc.

I hope you find something suitable quickly. I went to Angoulême for the first time a few weeks back, it’s a lovely town :slightly_smiling_face:

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3

Depending on how long you want to rent ufor, you could try rentaplaceinfrance.com

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4

What about a holiday cottage? An owner might be glad of a fixed 3 month income instead of perhaps hardly any tourists.

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5

Thanks a lot for your great help, @Shiba @Mark and @Gareth .
That is most helpful and makes me also feel warm and welcomed in the forum! :slight_smile:
Phil.

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6

Quick update to help other people like me who could use that info in the near future:

  1. We went to Angouleme for a week and first tried the “agences immobilieres” in Angouleme and La Rochefoucauld (the nearby village): A lot of the agencies don’t deal with rentals. The ones who do have very little opportunities for empty houses and even less for “meublés” (furnished). My guess is that people prefer to make money with AirBnb. Moreover, the amount of documentation and guarantees that you have to show in order to just qualify to visit a potential renal is prohibitive for an UK expat without a job and on a private pension: the agents don’t know how a Uk private pension works, so the chances of being picked over a person with a French work contract seem very remote.
  2. Looked at AirBnb and it was much better: more choices, less expensive in many many cases (the monthly rates can be very competitive: put at least one month for the search engine to see the right rebate being applied in the final price), utilities are included. Only possible drawback: you won’t have any utility bills to show to the French admin and thus need another way to justify your domicile. More on that later once I have experimented with the owner’s letter of domicile or the AirBnb certificate functionality.
    Hope this helps.
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7

I work in Paris 3 days per week, I used booking .com at first. One owner i asked about making a long term rental with him at the same price as I pay on B… com and he was over the moon. He now gets the money every week whereas before it was sporadic. Try the holiday home people or sites.

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