Thursday, June 21, 2007

Our apartment!

Well finally we signed the deal and we are now owning our apartment and at the same time in debt.

Just imagine this apartment empty and it would be how it looks now.


One thing I learnt is that in France buying a property comes with a lot of extra charges besides the property itself:

Lawyer fee: 7% of the price
Agency fee: 3.45% of the price
Yearly property tax: 0.5% of the price
Bank guarantee: 0.8% of the loan
Bank fee: 0.4% of the loan
Monthly apartment charges

Somethings I noticed:
1. The real estate agent lied a lot and we have to pay her in full while the seller doesn't have to pay anything.
2. We had an inspection after signing the agreement to buy and discovered some minor areas that need to get repaired. But at this point the seller has no more responsibility and the agent just keep delaying her time to response to us.
3. Loan rate in France is quite low and fix rate loans are more common. People don't have to worry about the fluctuate interest rate.

9 comments:

  1. OOOooo, looks nice!!

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  2. Anonymous4:40 AM

    The system is about the same in Japan. Yeah, the first lesson is NEVER trust the property agent 100%.

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  3. Hey - congratulations! that's sooo exciting. it's your very own home!

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  4. yeah nice stuff! finally a place where u can call home..

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  5. Congratulations on your new apartment. Nice to finally call a place your own.

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  6. Anonymous11:30 PM

    Ah, nice place. Congrats on your house moving!

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  7. wow...nicely decorated some more. I too felt very homely when I first saw the photo here. All the best in moving in to your own apartment. :)

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  8. congratulations on your newly purchased apartment!

    Is that pic really of your apartment? Looks nice!

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