Buying a property in France is a dream for many people.
I. French property market
The French real estate isn’t anything like the American Real estate market.
To start with, in America, you have buyer agents and you have seller agents. In France you just have seller agents. Maybe 20 people offer service to find a property.
Officially speaking, buyer agents do exist but they’re very few and far between and nothing like in the states. Also in America, you had the multiple listing systems where basically you can go into an agency in Florida to buy a house in Washington.
In France, unfortunately, it’s each agent for him/herself. There’s been multiple attempts at multiple listing systems but they never really took off.
Very few agencies combine the two to make like a hybrid set up. Seller agents take on properties to show you, but once they’ve shown you those properties, if they don’t have something that suits you, they’ll hunt down a property for you by talking to other agents and helping you actually find the property.
Then obviously, they will actually advise you through the whole process from the actual very first days visiting right through the final signing. And quite often after that as well.
Another aspect of the French market: an official agent. Notaires work for the buyers, sellers and the fiscal autorithies. They have the responsabilities to inform both sellers and buyers of their rights. They check property issues, any loan against the house. Notaires charge significant fees that actually include taxes. Most of the times the selling price of a property does not include the “frais de notaires”.
How do you recommend that Americans go about viewing properties in France? should I book viewings in advance or do I need to plan a longer trip and search for a property while I’m there?
Depends on what you call a longer trip. You need a bit of time. Certainly, we wouldn’t necessary say come over and plan for months, but you need at least a week or two.
And yes, do plan ahead. The main thing in planning ahead is actually to getting hold of a good agent. The reactive agent, one who gets back to you. And then actually use that agent to plan ahead and sort out the appointments so you actually have a road map set up when you come in France. Whether that’s over 5 days, 10 days, a month… At least you know where you’re going to be and how’s you are going to visit the properties.
And if it’s a self-respecting agent, they should actually help you with any other properties. It might come onto the books between when you initially book up and when you actually get there as well.
How long in advance do people contact a real estate agent? for example if they were coming over?
Some people start the process two years before to actually travel to France to visit locations.
Basically, it’s like other business. If you come in through in Winter, you can cut it a bit shorter. But general rule is about 3 weeks to a month beforehand.
That way especially with markets moving quite fast, it saves having to book up for like half houses would be sold by the time to get there, unfortunately.
3- I’ve heard that France is making it more difficult for second homeowners. Is there any truth to this? and do you think that French buyer might be reluctant to sell to an American buyer?
No, French are not against foreign buyers :-).
And about France making it more awkward for foreign buyer, No !
This probably comes from an English person; due to the fact that a lot of the British tend to think that they have Brexit. The French brought out special laws against them.
No, those laws existed. It’s just, now, the actual bridges have been reclassed.
For example: there has been a hike in second home taxes and you hear about it all over the actual English press. What the English press don’t say is the fact they’ve actually canceled out house tax on principal residences, so they got to make up for it somewhere.
For 90% of the population in France, they’ve stopped paying that tax so there are second home owners who now pay that tax. And yes, we do pay a bit more. For example, for a second home in Dordogne, the actual tax has gone up from 480€ to 520€ so about 40€ over a year.
2. Visas and residency for US citizens hoping to move to France or retired to France
Applying for a Visa or moving to France is easier than doing it to the USA. If you’re worried about it based on the fact that the US Visa application is tough and it really is. Thus the French one isn’t so much. Essentially it will be criteria that are based from the US side of things, which are the same from all over the world. As long as you can show that you’ve got financial income.
The three pillars are
- Financial income sufficient to show minimum wage in France.
- Somewhere safe to live or an address to use depending on what aspect you look at.
- And a private medical coverage, which will seem super cheap compared to what you have to pay in the US.
There’s going to be loads of different types of visas,
Know that you can do this completely for free. You probably don’t need an attorney to apply for a French visa.
For most types of visas, lots of you in America will apply for them yourself and you’ll be successful.
That being said, the process is a little bit, not stressful, but problematic potentially. Because there’s an awful lot of information online that’s confusing.
The French government choose to subcontract their application with a company that’s called VFS in the US. And they work of course for loads of other governments not just France.
You’ve got the ability as American to apply from anywhere around the US, even if you don’t live in that region.
There are only going to be two types of renewable visas that you will have before you leave.
Example: there’s a client and her husband is French and she still needs to apply for a Visa before she leaves.
There’s quite a lot of mystification of how that process actually happens.
Buying a property in France by yourself:
- you’re going to book in the appointment through the VFS website. Sometimes that breaks. Sometimes it doesn’t work.
- Some of the application documents are going to be in French,
- you’re going to have to get those 3 criteria
- you’ve got to create basically a dossier I guess before you apply.
The best way of describing this application is to think of it as a mortgage application, and you’ve got to get financials documents right, everything in order, some official translations…
Questions that get asked often is “do I need to have an FBI clearance check?”.
The answer is no, you don’t need to have that. You do need to have birth certificates translated.
And the good news is for the people not wanting to move to France permanently. You might not even need a visa. A 90 days rule for a temporary waiver visa could be okay for you.
You could also just look at getting a 6 months visa and then backing that up to the 90 days that you would have in France in addition too.
Revenue taxes after buying a property in France
So, there are other things to consider in terms of taxation for people permanently moving.
Not many people understand that France tax rules run from January to December. So, in December it starts again.
The good news is, you could have a 12 months visa and not be a tax resident necessarily of France. For second homeowners it’s really important to understand.
You can arrive in July and leave just before June the next year, and you still wouldn’t be tax in France.
Reason being, a lot of us people have real estate and there are taxations wealth tax in France on real estate. So, things to be considered good news is, France is actually quite flexible that way.
That type of VFS application on that actual visa application actually works really well. We’ve never had so far on 450 applications this year a rejection.
However, some people heard some wild and wondrous things of what they ask you in the various centers. One lady, actually in Miami got told “Well, actually, don’t you fancy going to Norway because I’ve never done an application for France”. So sometimes it can be quite stressful to go through that whole process. But in general, that kind of type of visa application is quite straightforward. You’d engage a company just because you want a full package, a full service and most probably you want a preparation beforehand and keep you completely informed of what you need to do moving forwards when you actually arrive. Because if you are permanently relocating, you’re going to have to go all the way to residency and that becomes a little bit more tough, since that happens in France, all in French with the French agents. Whereas in the US everything’s in English.
Find a place on my own or with an agent
There’re loads of people that actually film their experience on YouTube. You can look up these free video contents to help you get through these stages if you want to do this alone.
But, in general, this is actually a really straightforward process. French rules are not that hard to get through the doors, compared to arriving in the US for instance. And owning a second home, there are options of short-term visas that might absolutely fine in combination with your 90 days. Which means you’d have as whole 9 months in France anyway.
The only thing is of course, if you are moving permanently. You’re going to have to get your things in order, to make sure that your residency is in place. And a lot of people that probably will be buying property that a company find from us points of view that are relocating, might want to rent first before they buy. That’s often a problem. The big challenge for US people is finding somewhere to rent a property.
There are people charging superb amounts of money to try and do house hunting, but it never kind of really works all out that well for rentals. Because the level of standard of expectation is often so different between the US and France.
And often, in France, more money just means you get a bigger place. It doesn’t necessarily mean it’s all of that much better and finish.
To summaries, in terms of your visa application, it’s pretty straightforward. Show you’ve got money. Show you’ve got a medical insurance that complies with your application and make sure that you’ve got somewhere as an address registered to.
Lots people do it on their own. VFS in the US are taking about a month to get you an appointment, if not more. And also, we’ve seen that the delay for the actual visa to be issued is getting closer to a month as well.
How long should I plan before I buy a place in France
So, if you are planning on leaving. You need to actually, and it’s in the very near future, you need to get onto this pretty quick. Of course, the other thing to consider is just so you understand how the nuts and bolts of this work. VFS and Canada actually are closed at the moment, they’re just not taking appointments so there can be times of the year where they just kind of reduce the appointments. Stop the appointments happening in the US. Therefore it is good to plan this way ahead at least 6 months before you plan to leave. Because there’s quite a lot to take into consideration.
The process wherever you are in the US means that the passport. You’re going to give your passport away. But it’s going to travel to Washington DC. That’s where the French Consulate are going to deal with your files.
So, even if you’re in Houston applying. You’ve got VFS dealing with the file there.
Appointment only takes half an hour, but they might have loads of applications going through. So, by the time they deal with it and it gets sent off an internal poster to Washington DC. There’s just a physical fact that that’s just not next door. And then, they’re going to, I guess prioritize your application based on your onward travel, if it’s pre-booked as well.
That’s kind of the process in the US at least for application. Very similar to Canada.
I have an opportunity to become a citizen of Ireland, would obtaining a Visa and purchasing a home in France be easier if I was a citizen of Ireland as well as the US?
first thing to mention, you do not need a visa to purchase property in France. You do not need any type of visa to purchase property in France. And you don’t really need to apply for one even if you want to come on the United States.
If you’re lucky enough to become an Irish citizen, that takes about a year to apply to do that. Go through the process and then, no, you wouldn’t need any type of Visa because France is part of the schengen zone.
However, if you’re permanently relocating. You will need to register, in every single step, in form to become an Irish citizen living in France. Because it’s still a bureaucratic process to do.
If you’re married to an EU spouse, you can just go straight to France and apply for the residency card afterwards.
If you’re familiar with the US terms in terms of visas. The French process is a bit more like a work visa. It’s like what the US would call an L1 type Visa. Where your spouse can come with you. And that’s kind of what the European version looks like. You can go. you don’t need a visa in this case but your spouse can actually apply for what would be a temporary but longer-term Visa in France.
