So when do you start? 
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Torygraph article behind the paywall
I work as an agent and it can be okay though as others have said it is hard work. You get out what you put inā¦simple as that. You need to build up a portfolio of properties otherwise it is rather a waste of time. The maxim is that you will sell 15% of the properties on your books so only seven housesā¦one sale and one commission, but get up to fifty properties and you may likely sell seven houses. That can be a very nice little earner even after your costs.
That said I would most definitely not recommend Leggetts. We have friends who have tried and failed. The owners just take on and milk as many people as they can find and the initial commission rates are punitive to say the least. You also have to pay them for the privilege.
Find a smaller, local agent who will value you and then maybe give it a go but if you are the breadwinner and it is to be the main source of income then, as others have said, I would not recommend it.
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In their segment maybe (second homes for UK citizens, also other EU and non EU citizens) but not as an estate agents company for the whole of France. Orpi has nearly 1,300 agencies for instance and employs 6,000 people with a turnover to match; Century 21 has 850 agencies; LaforĆŖt Immobilier 750, Guy Hoquet 500 etc. That said, the Leggetts have done very well of course, and I understand theyāre trying to diversify their portfolio to include more main homes.
I have an old uni acquaintance who is a āmandataire immobiliĆØreā in the Loire Valley, for the market leader (IAD, about 14,000 mandataires immobiliers) and sheās happy with her lot. There are about 35,000 mandataires immobiliers in France (they now have about 10% of the immobilier market), they are cheaper than agencies (lower overheads), itās deffo on the rise, but the competition is ferocious (what with the massive growth of the particulier Ć particulier options and sites, esp. Le Bon Coin, who Iām pretty sure is Number 1 on immobilier in France in terms of volume).
The initial outlay as a mandataire is low I understand as you work from home (not sure under what status, micro-entrepreneur?), maybe an avenue to explore for Tory.
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Working āforā an estate agent is not easy. As others have pointed out, one is paid uniquely on commission: no sales = no income.
However, if one takes the time to become an āagent immobilierā as opposed to an āagent commercialā (which are what Leggetts are looking for,) then itās a totally different story.
This is what I did 10 or so years ago, without any previous knowledge of the profession. ā¦ other than it was universally hated and scorned ā¦ and have done ok out of the business. Of course it takes up a lot of your time as all jobs worth doing tend to. You have to be on top of a number of fairly technical aspects that are invisible to the vendor or buyer: like website creation, website management, internet marketing, etc as well as the legal side of things.
Dealing with clients is the easier part: the key is to let them wander around at will in a property, speak freely with the vendor and never, ever, show them a property that they havenāt asked to see.
Of course not everyone can just set up as an agent immobilier. You need a law degree from a EU university or 10 years experience working for an agency. There are top-up courses to take every three years to make sure you are up to speed with the latest laws.
As it happens I am selling my agency this year: Iām well over 70 and canāt take the driving any more. If anyone is interested in taking it over I can talk them through the different hurdles they would have to jump ā¦
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I agree with the comment that you seem to have a gt deal more to offer than estate agency.
My thoughts are the line of business in Spain of gestoro/ra. In Spain itās a formal occupation which includes qualifications but unless the services require qualifications by the FR gov, you could just set up and go. Or if they do, take them and get the badge.
A gestora is a āfixerā. They know the ins and outs of bureaucratic procedures in all sorts of fields - residency, health system, driving and car documention, utilities - the whole nine yards of forms - āWhen were you born and why?ā
My gestora in Spain set up my account with electicity and gas. She attended the connection [*] of gas main to meter to make sure it was done in one visit. She sorted my application to turn my S1 into a Spanish āCarte Vitaleā. She directed me thruā the procedure to turn my GB driverās licence to a Sp one - good to have that now, here in FR. She sorted and attended the interview with the office that turns an application for residency into a āCdSā card - note: in Spain - on the day!
The advantage a Spanish gestor/ra has, being qualified, is that they have the inside track in some areas which their clients do not have, particularly with the dreaded ātraficoā. My gestora, who is now a dear friend, is in despair becaue she has 30 Brits who need to change their driverās licence to Sp by a date and she has had nothing at all back from ātraficoā for several monthsā¦
You get the idea. Being familiar with what it takes, you help people in one end and out the other of whatever it is they need help with.
- It was while minding the gasman that my gestora heard the non-stop barking and howling of the dog in the adjactent flat. She was there for about 3 hrs. The dog barked and howled all that time. When she called my several hours later she said, āIs that dog still barking and howling?ā āHasnāt stopped all day. Will continue all night if the neighbour doesnāt come home. Itās like this every day and nightā
She called the police. They attended, called the bomberos [pompiers] who broke thruā the door. The police also called an animal welfare team. The subsequent report by the police resulted in a ādenunciaciĆ³nā for public health and animal welfare issues. It was knowing that everything in Spain starts with a call to the police and knowing the approach that got the matter into the hands of the people who could deal with the issues.
I had tried all sorts but being Brit, could not conceive that animal welfare and public hygiene issues start with calling the police. Legacy of Franco ā¦
My neighbour, a depressive alcoholic, died of cancer before the case came to be heard.
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There are people who offer this service in France already
I am sure there is capacity for many more.
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The miserable lot of an expat estate agent in France
By Chrissy Warner 17 June 2014 ā¢ 10:17am
5-6 minutes
The attractive stone chateau is at the end of a long drive of cypresses, and the owner wants just under a million euros for it. I know both these facts because even though itās been on the market for a mere matter of weeks, it has already been snapped up by four local estate agents. Their photographs and descriptions of the property ā though deliberately vague to stop potential buyers finding it on a drive-by and cutting them out ā have finally led me here.
The owner, a sprightly old fellow in his 70s, listens to my spiel with a surprising degree of patience considering the stuttering French in which it is delivered. Oui , I can take some photos. And oui , heāll sign the form that allows the estate agency ā or immobilier ā which I represent on a commission-only basis, to put the property on its books, too.
Heād be silly not to: in rural France, selling a property is a numbers game in which the aim is to spread the net as wide as possible. Working with a sole agent is virtually unheard of because five immobiliers can theoretically bring you five times as many potential buyers. For the estate agents it means they might only have a one in five chance of selling the property, but if they do their cut is astronomical ā immobiliers typically take between five and eight per cent, compared to the UKās norm of around two.
The maths can leave you quite giddy, and as I sign up this, my third property, I quickly work out that my 20 per cent share of the agencyās seven per cent fee would be around ā¬14,000. Itās week one of my new life as a French estate agent, and Iām loving it.
I stumbled into the job after struggling to find work, having moved here two years earlier with my family. I have a good degree and lots of experience working in the legal world ā but thereās little need for my rather niche legal skills in a landscape dominated by agriculture.
Like other mums, restlessness got the better of me and with precious few other options, I thought Iād give it a go. It sounded quite romantic ā zipping from one rustic farmhouse to another, signing up cheery owners and showing serious buyers from one dream home to the next.
The owners of the immobilier welcomed my initial inquiry with warmth, an invitation to dinner and, I now see with hindsight, rather a persuasive little sales pitch. If I got a house onto their books and it sold by any of their agents, Iād get my slice. If I showed a buyer any house on the agencyās books and it led to a sale, Iād also be paid. The words āā¬30,000 a year, easyā were bandied about, if I were to go for it. So I did.
It took about three months before the truth started dawning. Having put in nigh on 40 hours a week and signed up more than 25 houses, I felt committed ā both in terms of the effort Iād put in and the petrol Iād poured into the car. Yet I still hadnāt earned a penny.
I quickly realised that showing houses was the worst part of the job and to be avoided at all costs because itās impossible to do it without feeling like an unpaid taxi driver. Hour after pointless hour slips through your fingers as you drive āclientsā ā almost all Brits ā to every corner of the dĆ©partement . The worst were the holidaymaking voyeurs who simply wanted a good nosy at how French people lived. Hardly anyone ever made a second visit. No one made an offer.
By this time, word had got around about what I was doing and I would frequently bump into a fellow expat who would tell me with a roll of the eyes how theyād once been lured into it too. Every one of them had given it up as a bad job after six months or a year, in some cases never having sold anything.
As the weeks rolled by my misery deepened as I found myself trudging home with stories of being cornered by a randy old man in his garage; of how Iād tried in vain to explain to a seller that keeping a sheep in his kitchen might just put off buyers; about the fierce South African woman who refused to budge even two per cent so that she could make a sale and I could finally justify my otherwise ridiculous existence.
I lasted 12 months. When I totted up at the end of it, Iād taken less than ā¬6,000, which, after taxes, petrol, countless car washes and a new set of tyres, worked out at about ā¬2 an hour.
The agency never once shirked in paying my 20 per cent (it turned out, rather ironically, to be about 20 per cent of the minimum wage, too), and responded to my rather brusque farewell magnanimously. I knew by then that they needed mugs like me (and the eight others working there) to keep their businesses afloat ā and the slightly embarrassed smile that they gave me as I walked out the door told me that they knew I knew it, too.
The name of the author is a pseudonym and some details have been changed.
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There are plenty of French real-estate agents - particularly in the south of France - who know that they must speak English to the crowd of Europeans who are looking to settle here.
I, frankly, am āoutahereā. Had enough of France that is changing profoundly - and the new set of rules applied to selling a house are just an indication of the heightened problematic it has become. Given what I have seen over the past years, Iām not the only Yank to do so ā¦
I worked briefly with one of the top agencies and it is so much more than really loving property and talking with people.
You do have to work with the diagnostic people, foss people, notaires and be dissapointed so many times by clients and others so many times.
Not sure which agency is the best but I am selling through Maxwell Baines and they have been supporting us all the way but out of the main stream agencies just take your pick.
Leggett gives some trainingā¦or they once did.
Reply to all,Kevin said it allā¦poetry in motion.
This habit of putting properties with many agents led us to come over to France to look at a property and when we got to it with our agent, it was obvious that someone was living there, it had previously been empty, and nobody had thought to tell all the other agents it was sold.
I wonder how many times this happens?
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I had a first contact with them to sell my house and the requirements put to me were ridiculous. In order to prove ownership of the house, one need only demonstrate the annual ātitle costā paid to the city - but they insisted that I show them the contract for the piece of land I bought and built the house upon fifteen years ago.
Perfectly ridiculous ā¦ !
perfectly acceptable imo.
They would wish to establish that you did indeed own the land on which the property was built and that you had the appropriate permissions to do so.
People have been known to build illegally:
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Whatās ridiculous about wanting proof you own the place you are selling ?
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ā¦ and here lies the problem. The writer thinks, and the reader probably too, that she is an āestate agentā. She isnāt. Sheās an agent commercial. An agent commercial has no legal training and no qualifications and can just walk in off the street and start āworkingā the next day. The confusion that this causes is immense!
No wonder half the French population (and probably three-quarters of the Brits) loathe estate agents as they are confused with agents commercials. Nobody who is paid ā¬2 an hour is going to do the same job as the gĆ©rant of an agency: the real agent immobilier.
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Apart from the language for Brits wanting to buy houses, why donāt the real agent immobilier get off their backsides and do some proper work for their money?
All of this not telling you where the house is is really annoying and a real time waster.
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we had great fun in the early days of our French experience looking for the propertyā¦ and found most of them! (didnāt buy any of them however, wrecks mostly!)
We got very good at finding things on Google Maps (for gƮtes as well).
Mind you Iāll go back to a criticism of French estate agents which still seems to be true. Hardly any of them can photograph a property in a way which causes the slightest inducement to get interested in it.
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often quite the reverse!
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