Prices in France

Questions about the possibility of negotiating the price of a French property are becoming more and more common these days from prospective UK buyers of French Property especially those selling in the UK. The most recent call I had was from a couple who visited just over 2 months ago, fell in love with our region of Burgundy and were more than happy with the prices for the type of property they were looking for, their intention was to return to UK, put their own property immediately on the market and get back to us when they had a positive buyer, up to the present moment they have not had a viewing. The question they asked me was. " As we are having no luck in attracting buyers at the moment, if we were to significantly drop our asking price here in the UK can we expect to do the same over there in Burgundy for the property we expect to purchase", my answer to that was " yes, the market here in France is experiencing the same downturn as the UK and the houses being sold are those where the owners are willing to negotiate"
Most of our clients are those looking to live permanenetly in France and are normally coming up to retirement or already retired, they are not looking to wait too long to before they make their move. Market conditions are not exactly favourable for those selling a property in the UK before they buy in France, couple that with the bad exchange rate between the pound and the euro and it makes the job of finding a property within a budget quite difficult, however I can assure clients that not only here in Burgundy but all over France property prices are negotiable, sometimes more than would be reasonably expected, so do not give up that dream it just needs a little more resolve and strong negotiating. Allen Walkey (simplyburgundy)