Buying in France from abroad
People ask how to access off-market properties as if there were a list to sign up to. What exists are sellers who choose whom they show their property to. This dossier says what they really filter, the four documents that convince them, and how to present them when buying from abroad.
By Jean Mascla, founder of Home Select Updated · 5 min read
The question is always asked the wrong way round. People ask how to access off-market properties, as if there were a list you sign up to. What exists are sellers who choose who they show to, and it is they who must be convinced.
Not money. A seller who refuses a listing is first refusing something else: viewings driven by curiosity, buyers who discover their project while viewing, appointments cancelled the day before. They have accepted selling more slowly in exchange for less traffic.
What they filter is therefore wasted time. A buyer whose budget, financing and criteria are written down goes ahead of a wealthier buyer who has settled nothing. It is counter-intuitive, and it is the key to the subject.
A written search mandate, signed with a professional holding the carte T. It tells the seller who they are dealing with and who answers for confidentiality. Without it the conversation does not happen, because nobody opposite is putting their liability on the line.
Financing already assessed, with an agreement in principle to back it. A sale that fails on the loan sends the seller back to the market they were avoiding, and they know it. It is the document that weighs most, before even the amount.
Settled criteria: area, size, upper budget included. A brief that shifts at every viewing signals a project that is not ripe, and a professional will not show a property twice to a moving target.
Real availability to view within the week. Discretion has a counterpart: the sale plays out quickly when it plays out.
No sum may be asked of you before the transaction is actually concluded. Article 6 of the law of 2 January 1970 forbids it to any professional holding a mandate.
An entry fee, a subscription, file charges to "access the network" are therefore unlawful, whatever wording is used and whatever the quality of the website offering them. It is in fact the most reliable signal for telling real access from a promise of access.
Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat, Côte d’Azur
Write it as the seller will read it, not as you live it. Three lines are enough: who you are and where you come from, what you are looking for with an upper budget owned up to, and how you finance with a date when funds are available.
A foreign buyer usefully adds a fourth line: how they will sign if they cannot travel. It is a question the seller will ask themselves, and answering it before it is asked beats discovering it when the deed date is set.
A good file gets you shown properties. It does not get you a lower price, and it replaces no checking.
What confidentiality shifts is the number of people facing you and the time you have, not the property’s value nor the seller’s obligations. The negotiating room depends above all on the property’s origin, not on the quality of your presentation, and what you must check remains entire: surveys, co-ownership documents, private floor area, the cooling-off period.
Home Select searches and negotiates for the buyer, and for the buyer alone. Your property finder checks the property, the building’s documents and the calendar before you commit, and flags what deserves a question to the notaire or a clause in the offer.
Around the purchase, we introduce the partners used to buyers who live abroad: bilingual notaire, mortgage broker, lawyer, sworn translator. Each acts under their own responsibility; we keep the calendar, from the offer to the handing over of the keys.
No, and a request of that kind should alert you. Article 6 of the law of 2 January 1970 forbids any professional holding a mandate from receiving a sum before the transaction is actually concluded. An entry fee, a subscription or file charges presented as the price of access to a network run against that text, whatever wording is used.
No, and that is what surprises most. A seller who refuses a listing also refuses viewings driven by curiosity: what they filter is wasted time, not financial standing. A buyer whose budget, financing and criteria are written down goes ahead of a wealthier buyer still discovering their project as they view.
It is what makes access possible in practice, because it tells the seller who they are dealing with and who answers for confidentiality. A search mandate is signed with a professional holding the carte T, it is written on pain of nullity, and it gives rise to no payment before the transaction is actually concluded.
A written search mandate, signed with a professional holding the carte T. It tells the seller who they are dealing with and who answers for confidentiality. Without it the conversation does not happen, because nobody opposite is putting their liability on the line.
Write it as the seller will read it, not as you live it. Three lines are enough: who you are and where you come from, what you are looking for with an upper budget owned up to, and how you finance with a date when funds are available.
A good file gets you shown properties. It does not get you a lower price, and it replaces no checking. What confidentiality shifts is the number of people facing you and the time you have, not the property’s value nor the seller’s obligations. The negotiating room depends above all on the property’s origin, not on the quality of your presentation, and what you must check remains entire: surveys, co-ownership documents, private floor area, the cooling-off period.
Further reading
From the Home Select magazine
Preparing a purchase in France from abroad, or already an owner there? Describe your situation: a Home Select property finder answers within one working day, and the file starts with the right partners, in the right order.
Discuss your projectDescribe what you are looking for, anywhere in France. A property finder answers within one working day, with no commitment.
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