An Open House Tour of Properties in Nice and Aix-en-Provence

During last week’s Living and Investing in France Conference and Tour to Provence and the Occitanie, our attendees had the opportunity to visit several properties for sale in Nice, Lourmarin and Aix-en-Provence during an “Open House.” Orchestrating such an event is no easy task, as this (“Open House”) is simply NOT DONE in France. Sellers are usually not agreeable to opening their homes to strangers, much less a horde of “lookie-loos,” American or otherwise. Nonetheless, Nice Search Consultants Jennifer Parrette and Ella Dyer managed to pull together a list of 11 properties in Nice and four in Aix-en-Provence.

Adrian with Jennifer and Ella at the Living & Investing in France Conference in Nice

The way Jennifer and Ella were able to pull this off was with the cooperation of some of our best partner agents who were able to open the apartments for a few hours, as long as we had someone in each one to “man” it while the attendees toured them, walking from one to the other at their own pace.

If you read this past week’s Nouvellettre®, then you know that I was stationed in an apartment right on the Promenade des Anglais with a fabulous view, during which one of our attendees fell on the stairs, fractured her shoulder and was taken by ambulance to a local hospital where she got great care and no bill to show for it. Thank goodness of France’s health care system. (She is fine now and home convalescing.)

All the properties are currently on the market for sale. There was a good mix of size, price, amenities and location. This gave our attendees a chance to see a broad range of possibilities and compare them. As we all know, there are trade-offs to make with every property search. For example, if you want a sea view, then the Promenade is perfect, but there is noise from the traffic when the windows are open. Most of my visitors said they didn’t mind it all—it meant there was life outside their door. For those who want or need an elevator, Old Town might not be a good choice as few properties in the oldest part of Nice offer that luxury. If you want a “bourgeois” building, then you can’t expect a large balcony or terrace, etc., etc., etc. There’s no such thing as the perfect apartment—you just have to accept that one must give and take to get as close to perfect as possible.

Here are some of the examples of properties we visited during our Open House Tours—in Nice and in Aix-en-Provence:

If you’re interested in any of these, do send us an email to learn more!

A bientôt