The Viewings

Viewing Schedule

Thanks to our property agent, the very nice Katerina of Beaux Villages Immobilier (see her instagram here), we had received a great selection of properties that matched our criteria and budget. We had spent hours reviewing the details shared and preparing a list of 7 places that we thought worth viewing. It is worth saying that the list changed almost daily lesding up to our visit as some properties became unavailable or new ones popped up squeezing others of our list.

Our request for a wow factor with a pool appeared to be met by most of the properties suggested to us. Katerina had arranged 3 viewings for us on Thursday afternoon when we arrived in Bergerac with 3 more scheduled for Friday and 2 for Saturday. However we started strong with 2 of what we expected would be our top 4 properties.

Viewing 1

Viewing 1 was at property 4 from our previous blog Shopping List of Houses. We had expected this property to be the one we would like most.

Incredible, amazing, beautiful all describe this home. Designed and built for the sellers, it was we agreed the nicest house we had ever seen. The large, modern kitchen was amazing and the layout with connected lounge and access to the pool and terraces from most of the ground floor rooms, was just lovely. Upstairs was equally nice and the master bedroom even had a small balcony over looking the pool. In total there were 6 bedrooms and 4 bathrooms/toilets.

The plot was about 2000m2 and very well organised. Automatic watering systems were in place for the garden and plant beds. The pool was heated with an automatic cover and the terraces had a nice selection of covered and uncovered tables, chairs and sofas. It felt like the perfect home in the sun. However, for us the location was perhaps too remote and was approached by typically narrow country lanes. We worried about internet access to support our intensively online lives and remote. Though a survey with the Starlink app did indicate that we had that as an option if needed. Finally the plot itself neighboured onto fields but with not much in terms of view although looking across fields is still quite nice. We new the other properties would improve on that aspect.

But oh my, it was such a beautiful property. We were honestly tempted to offer on it straight away. But sense prevailed and we proceeded to the next viewing.

Perfect mismatch.

This is the property that although almost perfect as a house was not quite right for us.

The kitchen that we turned down.

Viewing 2

Viewing 2 was at property 1 from our previous blog Shopping List of Houses.

It had been a last minute addition to our priority list for viewings. It looked from the photos like a beautiful, quite new build in a classic country style. Less bedrooms and bathrooms than the first house. But inside was very tasteful and it had a great feature lounge with an old stone fireplace, wooden beams supporting an 6m high vaulted ceiling and finally a wooden balcony overlooking from the entrance to the first floor bedrooms. If you remember from our blog on viewing criteria imagining where our Christmas tree would go is important for us. Well, the stunning lounge can host as big a Christmas tree (sapin de noel) as we could ever imagine having. Plus with the sofas centered around the wood burner in the old stone fireplace. I doubt it would be hard to find a room more suitable for a classic, cozy Christmas. Oh and while thinking about the stone fireplace, the sellers told us that it was salvaged from a local chateau. That’s a nice feature.

The Kitchen was very nice and big enough. That would have been a red flag if it weren’t. The Kitchen and connected dining area were also very nice, gentle colouring and tastefully matching tiles.

Finally the outdoor space was much better than we had been able to tell from the agents photos. The house was approached by a sweeping, rising private drive which curves up and around the pool area to the parking outside the house. The terrace and pool area looks over surrounding countryside, with vineyards on 3 sides. The neighbouring vineyards mark the edge of the property and those behind the house flow up hill towards the local Chateau visible about 3km in the distance.

Over all the feel of this house was exactly what we wanted. We were smitten, We had found our house.

The One

The house and pool area. The one that grabbed our hearts.

Viewing 3

Viewing 3 was an emotional challenge, it felt like going on a dinner date when you know that your earlier lunch date had already stolen your heart but you were too polite to cancel and still curious about options. However this date had been added to our agenda to balance our selection so off we went.

Property 3 was a very pleasant split level bungalow with a secluded, large pool area in very remote countryside. If we had been looking for a pure holiday cottage then it would have been a consideration. But it was unfortunately not equipped to be a wow factor permanent home.

Decision Time

After visiting the final property for the day, we went into the near by town of Eymet (pronounced “Ey meh”). This was a gorgeous little town that we had not heard of and clearly a real tourist centre. It has a wonderful square of very old buildings, surrounded by bars, restaurants and estate agents.

We had discussed things together in the car and sitting at a cafe in the square, over invisible drinks that we never got to order, we let Katerina know how absolutely smitten we were with viewing 2.

We wanted to make an offer. We love it, we wanted it, we couldn’t imaging being anywhere else after seeing it.

The sellers it turns out are relocating to Canada, so buying some of the furniture was an option as they would not want to ship everything and disposing of things is a lot of work. We loved most of the furniture, so we agreed to make an offer that included white goods, furniture and garden equipment.

The house is listed with one member of agency staff as a seller representing the property and our agent then liaises with them to get a feel for what would be accepted. We had to wait for an acceptable offer to be negotiated between agents and then presented to the sellers.

Second Viewing

We went back the next morning with no offer yet submitted. We agreed to make a 2nd viewing to check detailed dimensions of spaces and that we still felt so positive about the house.

Armed with a laser measure, I noted everything. All the spaces where we would consider putting our furniture if we needed to. Plus noting exact room sizes and looking at everything again. Yep, we still loved it.

Here is a tip for selling a house. Put it in a sunny area of rolling hills, surrounded by vineyards, then host your potential buyers under a canopy by the pool. While enjoying the amazing views, casually tell them how everything is new, energy efficient and low maintenance. Damned sneaky sales approach that worked on us.

We left, and then met in a coffee shop for a chat with Katarina, where we told her clearly that we would really like to submit an offer that day and would like to push for a response and ideally positive result before we left the next day. We gave Katerina parameters for negotiation and left it with her.

The Offer

As stated above, we made an offer to include buying furniture and had agreed parameters for negotiation on an upper limit. Waiting is not our strength normally but especially not when excited about a fabulous house purchase. A couple of hours later we were told that the offer had been submitted, that the owners had not rejected it and promised to consider it and give a response by end of the day. A few hours later the agent called back. The sellers explained that they had walked around the house to consider what they had and what they wanted to do and realized that they didn’t really want to take so much in their immigration. So they asked for a little under 5,000 euros extra for the contents. We immediately agreed and we had ourselves an offer accepted in principle!