Saturday, July 18, 2015

Tough negotiating and I am poleaxed by the heat


Friday 17 July 2015

Sticky and exhausting with thunder and blissful rain later - 33 degrees

Wake earlier and earlier each morning and on average I am up and about from 6 - 6.30.  It must be a Summer thing.  In Winter I am comatose until at least 8.  OH, left to his own devices, would sleep until gone 10.  I don't know how he gets so tired.  Its not as if he moves much when he is awake....

Down town with OH to do revisits with Wednesday's clients.  They are on the dot time wise and we head off to the house which is in our town.  They are concerned about the construction method - known as Europac 2, it is basically a polystyrene block, filled with reinforced concrete - enormously energy efficient.  The problem is that the owner has not finished the pool, or the gite.  On the positive side, the green house gases are the lowest I have ever seen, the cost of heating is minimal and the finished value would be considerably in excess of how much they would pay to purchase and complete the works.  We are there for an hour and a half and then go and see the other property.

Built in a classic breeze block, interior insulation and rendering style, it is a finished product. It has a wonderful pool, full of blue and inviting water and the garden is wonderfully planted. It is in a village that is not unattractive but that normally you would have trouble selling to the locals.  Other than the locals who were born there, that is.  Almost as soon as we get there, it becomes apparent that this house has moved into number one spot and we leave after an hour and go to the deep, dark depths of a bar and start to talk money.

The price is 371000 and the clients say they would like to get it for 340000.  I bet they would.  I talk to the owners and the husband says that the only way they would be prepared to accept a low price is if they got to rent free whilst they renovate the presbytery - an unexceptional property which they have purchased in the same village, and currently have on a bridging loan.  Surprisingly, the clients are not adverse to this idea and say that if the owners sell and then pay them a peppercorn rent, they can stay in the house until April.  I decide, bearing in mind the initial hard line reaction of the owners, to let them simmer overnight.  Their house has been for sale for five years.  It is time for them to be flexible.

Back home for quick lunch and then back out into the oven like temperatures to meet a young couple of ladies from Eire.  They are hovering in the shade of the railway hotel and looking palely luminescent, in the way only Irish people can.  I show them a couple of houses in the country and it quickly transpires that they want to be in our town, where I have nothing organised.  I had tried to get them into a house where the owner, an English lady, assured me that she would work with me.  I finally got through to her this morning and she kicked off by asking why I hadn't brought anyone around and then said she wasn't available and then said she would only be working with my colleague.  She is the second mad old bat to let me down over the past few weeks.  When I saw her last, to talk about putting her house on sale, she was all sweetness and light and oh yes, I will only work with you.  I give up with single English ladies of a certain age.  They are volatile.  

A sudden flash of inspiration struck and I took them to see the little house with the pool belonging to the gay guys.  Alas they were not at home.  The ladies were very sad that they could not see the house and said it looked funky.  I realised I had been guilty of seeing the house with my eyes and thinking it looked wierd.  I promised to send hem the brochure and dropped them back off at the catr park.  Back home and felt boiled and exhausted. Managed to speak to my notaire about the US lady case.  She was in the middle of writing a tough letter to the US lady notaire, saying that if the matter was not brought rapidly to a close, then the seller would bring a case for damages.

Was about to water when the skies turned yellow and there were ominous rumblings.  Rain, blissful sweet fresh moisture, falling from the skies as I went to bed.


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