Real estate agents and advice (center city Toulouse)

#2 ·

First thing to understand is that the real estate agency business works considerably differently in France than it does in the US. Normally, apartments don't really get posted as being on the market until a month or two before they become available. This year is going to be somewhat trickier, what with the Olympics in France (and I think there are at least a couple events scheduled for Toulouse).

You might do better to line up some sort of vacation rental for a month or two to cover your September arrival, with a plan to do your apartment hunting on arrival. You really can't secure a longer term place (like, with a standard 3 year lease) until you're on site and have your French bank account set up (needed for your credit evaluation).

 

#3 ·

First thing to understand is that the real estate agency business works considerably differently in France than it does in the US. Normally, apartments don't really get posted as being on the market until a month or two before they become available. This year is going to be somewhat trickier, what with the Olympics in France (and I think there are at least a couple events scheduled for Toulouse).

You might do better to line up some sort of vacation rental for a month or two to cover your September arrival, with a plan to do your apartment hunting on arrival. You really can't secure a longer term place (like, with a standard 3 year lease) until you're on site and have your French bank account set up (needed for your credit evaluation).

Thanks, Bev. Good advice. Kinsale

 

#4 ·

Are you already in France? If yes do take a trip down to take a look around. There are many agencies and I wouldn't want to make a recommendation. But at least there seem to be apartments to rent. They've been building enough, recently :oops: . Spend some time to check out the quartiers. There are places with availability that you don't want to buy into.
 

#5 ·

We arrived in Toulouse at the beginning of May, looked at three apartments, submitted our dossier to two of them both of whom accepted us, picked the better of the two and are now living happily in it. We started with the RE agencies as you plan to, but that got us exactly nothing. Meanwhile we looked daily at the listings on leboncoin.fr, seloger.fr, and bienici.com where we found all of the apartments that we looked at. They don't last there long. None of the agents we dealt with spoke any English, by the way.

Both of the apartments that we liked required a guarantee, for which we used garantme.fr which both landlords were prepared to accept. We opened a bank account at Crédit Agricole, which took a couple of weeks to complete including an hour and a half interview with the bank officer. You will need to prepare a dossier to demonstrate your financial capability. We included our 2023 IRS Form 1040 (summary and Form C), three months of statements from all of our US banks, attestation d'hébergement, benefit statement from the SSA, our own summary of all income including non-taxable and net worth, and the application form from the rental agent.

Vrbo.com or cocoonr.fr are better bets than airbnb. It is important that you get an attestation d'hébergement from your short-term rental which should show the seal of the agency and a signature. You won't get a bank account without it.

We set up three one-month rentals in advance so that if we found lodging by June we could cancel the July rental which we did.

Good luck to you. Toulouse is worth the hassle.

 

#6 ·

So, you were able to look at them before submitting a dossier? 2 out of 3?
Our experience was very similar except the level of interest in our dossier was much lower. We were able to view about 5% of the properties we thought we wanted. The ones we could have had after viewing were mostly disappointing. What we ended up with is OK, but really noisy and hard to deal with parking the car. I would love to find a better rental , but don't really want to do it all over again. Still don't really know where, or even IF (pending elections) , I want to buy a house.
 

#8 ·

I was going to reply that there are lots of local conditions that can affect how your are received in your hunt for a place to live. Timing can be everything, as Chrissippus points out. The May/June time frame tends to be good, as people are moving to get settled before school opens in September. Other factors include: location, your specific requirements/expectations, price range you're looking for, your familiarity with the area or procedures in the area where you're looking, etc.