Expanding Our Resources…for YOU!

We’ve had such an influx of North Americans wanting to move to France (especially from the U.S.) that we have expanded our capability to assist you all! I am no longer the only one on staff consulting with clients—Patty Sadauskas is working with our clients who are pretty far along and wishing to move to France and rent, while Jennifer Parrette is taking on those who are set on finding property to purchase.

Patty landed in France almost nine years ago when she left corporate life behind and sold nearly everything to follow her dream to move to Paris—for what she called a “career break.” I had published a P.S. looking for a personal assistant, to which she responded. We met the day after she arrived in Paris and I hired her as an assistant, that day.

She attended Kansas State University where she studied marketing and received a Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration. She served in many volunteer positions, most notably as a director of the Kansas Credit Union Association. Patty focused on her career with the credit union, always keeping the hope of living in France in her mind. Not surprisingly, she found that life in Paris agreed with her and has no plans to return to her former life in the U.S. In fact, her sister began to visit her and subsequently moved to Nice to enjoy the same pleasures about 1.5 years ago.

Patty is one of the most resourceful people I know. Nothing gets her in the way of accomplishing her goals. She’s incredibly logical and fearless. We joke between us that she is the tortoise and I am the hare because she is methodical and slow, while I am speeding up ahead, but missing things along the way. She usually arrives at the goal ahead of me or at the same time, but either way, it makes for a good combination. Patty’s ability to assist our clients, particularly on the mechanical aspects of making the move, is better than mine, while my strength is more in the ability to strategize and give a client real direction. We offer her services to those who already have a pretty clear picture of what they want to achieve, but need to have an exact plan in place for each of the steps.

When not assisting our clients and me, Patty enjoys exploring and learning more about France and honing her travel skills, which she now shares with others on French travel forums. She is frequently off to Venice and other EasyJet destinations, fast and easy from Nice’s international airport. She loves Nice so much, that she’s our Number One promoter of the Riviera town.

We met Jennifer Parrette via Patty, because her husband, Vinx (an internationally acclaimed jazz vocalist and songwriter) and Patty were high school buddies in Kansas City. Before coming to work with the Adrian Leeds Group, she and Vinx had been living in France for several years. During that time she launched her own real estate company called Cathar Country Houses. It provided real estate sales and relocation services for international clients and French natives in the South of France.

Jennifer is an experienced professional who has built business teams in both real estate and the entertainment industry. She has a BA from Dartmouth College and an MBA from The Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth. She and Vinx also run a residential workshop series for artists called The Artist Within.

When we were introduced, I immediately recognized her business acumen and delightful personality, so I recruited her to work with us. After a short time, Jennifer was willing to give up her more lucrative assignments with the big prestigious agencies she was working with to work instead with our North American clients, who she found a whole lot more enjoyable. If anyone can help our clients make the best decisions when buying a property in France, it’s Jennifer.

Both Patty and Jennifer are devoting their time to doing the consultations, at a slightly lower fee than those with me. I didn’t give up the job easily, nor would have I agreed to it if I weren’t sure they could do the consultations every bit as successfully as I do…especially for those clients who are a bit further along in their thinking and the process.

In order to help more people, we are (finally) working on creating an online course on “How to Move to France” that will be purchasable and viewable in your own home, on your own time, on your own device. It will be a few months in the making, but meanwhile, it would be helpful to know from you what you’d like to learn—particularly those things we’re not already offering.

The course will be divided into four categories, so that you can select one, more or all:

1. Defining Your Goals
2. Preparing for Your Move
3. Finding Housing
4. Settling In

In addition, we will provide a long list of resources and tips for making this transition as easy as possible. The course will be in-depth and comprehensive, but it can never replace the value of a personal consultation that is targeted toward your specific needs and goals. It will be designed to aggregate all of the information that we have disseminated in our various Nouvellettres®, our webinars and conferences, all in one place, to make it easy for you to fully understand what you are about to undertake and move you much further along in your process.

Meanwhile, we have a pretty good idea of what needs to be included, but we’d like to hear from you what you want to get out of it! If you have the time and wherewithal to help us, complete this brief questionnaire. It’s your chance to offer your opinion and insights! Just click here.

Thanks for your input! And stay tuned for more information about the course!

A la prochaine…