In French, “oh la la” is more akin to “Oh my God” as opposed to the way it is said in English “ooh la la” which means sexy.
So, let me begin with oh la la…it has been a tough stretch
and things are finally starting to settle down.Right after my last post, our landlords told us they were selling their house. This pulled the rug out from under us (almost literally, but there aren’t rugs here.) We frantically began searching for a new home to rent or buy. This put quite the damper on Christmas.
Angers is a very hot commodity right now and many people are leaving Paris for here so the prices are insane and quality places are snapped up immediately. Rentals are nearly impossible to find.
There is no multiple listing service and realtors do not work together. They represent the seller, so buyers beware. One house may be listed by 15 different offices or exclusively by one. Realtors will not give you the address in advance so you must make an appointment and then find out the house is a disaster, or in a terrible location or already under contract by the time you can see it.
Rentals are difficult because the laws favor the tenants. If the tenants don’t pay, it can take months or years to evict them, so landlords require a guarantor - someone who will pay your rent if you don’t. Good luck finding that person as a newbie. Also, unfurnished rentals don’t include equipped kitchens, so a new apartment means you must bring your cabinets, appliances, and kitchen sink! Angers is a university town, so many apartments are student housing, so very noisy.
We realized made a mistake by living in this house, because it is in the nicest area and everything else feels like a step way down.
But then…
We asked the landlords to sell us our home and their backyard. At first they said no, but after thinking about it, they decided to do just that! This decision was reached at the end of January. As of today, March 5, we are still waiting to make our Compromis de Vente - or offer contract. Supposedly it will happen on the 14th. Then, if all goes well, we may actually close in June.
We are thrilled to get to stay in this house. We love the location, the neighbors, the amenities.
Our visas have been renewed, we now have French healthcare, and hopefully soon, we will have our forever home. But I am ready to forget December, January, and February. Oh la la.
Oh good luck with the offer. I hope you get it ❤️. That kitchen made me dizzy lol. Loved the other pictures but LOVED the train station. How pretty.
ReplyDeletehi, from gregg/barb........loved your pix the kitchen has a dizzying affect, i've got to have gregg see it. he is prone to dizziness. you have been heavy on my mind, so happy to hear from you. i have had a very sad several months, since october; when my eldest brother died, in a care place,with ALZ, in dallas area. we did have some nice visits before he got worse, nice thksgvg, with them, plus other fam, then a nice christmas, 2022. it was sad that our younger bro was not invited...had some sort of upset a year ago.....and now, my younger brother has passed, too., just after xmas, he got pneumonia xmas night, went to hosp for 3 days, then back to his adult care place, they put him on hospice, much to our surprize,& he died within 3days. i blame hospice which irritates gregg, but they began giving him morphine, in case he was in pain, then his organs began shutting down as they do w/morph. he was the brother i wanted to buy your bike for; so, now he's riding bikes with the angels, i;m hoping. his son is here from miami, we're preparing for the memorial, in spring, whenever it choose to begin. today we had hail/snow and very cold. last week we had inches of snow. i told hubby, i do not want to spend another winter here in this god
ReplyDeleteforsaken climate....maybe arizona. wow, you're buying a home there, how exciting, not having to look anymore, or pack up and move. if we sold our coastal place, we could move to warmer digs; like you said, the world could be my oyster; but it has to be warm, not too hot or humid, rules out miami, any east coast locale, where greggs sibs live. i have no more family here; who loves me, boohoo,
and canada isn't ideal, but lots of rels still live there,so far. they thot we ought to move back after t. became pres. or nuisance, more like it..
stan/ marie stayed a weekend with us at beach; they are so kind, sweet, generous, i guess i could adopt them as rels. i've tried to tell them howto find you; have you heard from them? hoping you'll send more pix of your new home. how old is it?? when younger bro became so ill, after stroke; we got really busy, in prep for selling his home. got a great guy(realtor) who did lots of work for us, house not on sewer, needed new furnace/ac; so home sold rather quickly, bro was now paralyzed on left side, so it seemd he would never be able to go back to his 2 storey home, he was very sad about it, too, loved his home/truck, all had to be sold, we do have items in our garage from his sale, some will go to beach house, others we'll try to sell for the son. it was very hot last summer, the time just flew. our yard got very little attention;but we now have a very good guy, who mows, this time of year, he's pruning.our dwarf apple trees, now do look dwarf, finally, hoping to get more fruit this year. we do have a google acct, but not sure how to get this on google; so hoping you receive this goofy report from salem.
Huge congrats on the house, the new visas, and getting French health insurance! It all worked out in the end! See you in May :-)
ReplyDelete…and the adventure continues! So thrilled things are finally going your way, house-wise. Whew!!! Love your pics, as always. Especially the critters! 😘
ReplyDelete