It's not all play and no work in the Alps!

It’s not all play and no work being an estate agent in the Alps you know.

Actually I think I can safely say we all work really hard. But it’s the type of work that gets under your skin and you either love and become addicted to it or it just ain’t for you ...... I love it.

Because I’m the team leader for this area I get to travel far and wide looking for properties, helping the team and searching for new property agents. Last week for example I was near Annecy showing clients around this lovely 3 bedroom house that offers great value for money and can be doubled in size by finishing off the top floor, and is near the incredibly beautiful lac d’Annecy, with all the summer activities on offer that you’d expect near such a big lake. Then with Alison, one of the Rhone Alps team, on holiday, I was showing a client round for her and took them to this amazing ski apartment right in the centre of Samoëns, which they are considering. Then it was back to my valley to get the diagnostics (pre-sale tests) done on a ski studio in Les Menuires that is currently under offer. So I really do get about which is all good when you’re travelling through scenery as beautiful as it is here.

Andrew, the buyer in les Menuires, had been looking for a decent ski in ski out studio apartment that would provide him and his friends a ski base without breaking the bank and was delighted when he spotted this one. The studio is perfect for him and we have already sourced someone to manage it for him and rent it out so he can also make some income as well as saving the money of paying for his ski holidays. I have just taken on a very similar ski studio which is just as well as I do get quite a lot of enquires for this type of property. Not surprisingly as les Menuires for all its faults offer incredible value for money when it comes to buying ski property or having a decent winter holiday. And I know David, the agent over in Paradiski, is getting lots of enquires for his apartments and recently sold one in Montchavin-les-Coches.

Then last week “He who must be obeyed”, our intrepid leader Mr Leggett himself, held a National and team leaders meeting at head office in the Dordogne. It’s a long haul from here and for me means two days out of the office and about 16hrs of driving, but one of the amazing things about travelling in France is the emptiness of the roads, there are times when the auto routes get jammed up, but it’s the exception and not the rule. So when you plan a journey you can put your route in to viamichelin and the time they suggest the journey will take won’t be far off. Of course what they don’t allow for is breakdowns ........

I found myself in an industrial estate in St Etienne (yep, they really do have them in dream holiday locations as well as in the normal world), just past Lyon, in the rather surreal situation of having a chat with the charming garage owner, lorries whizzing past just a few inches from our noses, whilst sipping really good coffee from a china cup which arrived on a silver tray along with a chair for me to sit on in the sun whilst I waited for the repair to be completed. Job done and after some fond farewell and a rather hefty bill later I re-joined the auto route ............... only to find that the repair hadn’t worked ........ hey ho. There was no going back so I had to stop again at a garage in Clermont-Ferrand by arrangement of my dear husband (whose directing skills over the telephone were somewhat at odds with my interpretation of time and distance, but with a divorce looming I finally found the garage – Clermont is a big place!), here the more normal surly service was resumed and the problem was fixed!

This all meant I arrived in Brantome just down the road from our head office, where I had booked a hotel, at 22.30 rather than the 19.30 I had planned for. Still, I managed a walk around the beautiful town, also known as Little Venice, that is so popular with the Brits before bed and also walked round the bustling market in the morning buying several items I had absolutely no need for what so ever which was very satisfying .....

Then in to the meeting where Trevor Leggett and team had good news for us - property sales were up and across the board business was on the increase. Because of this upturn one of the topics on the agenda was recruitment. As team Leader in the Rhone Alps for I am trying, alongside Leggett HQ, to recruit estate agents all around the ski resorts, spa towns and lakes. You don’t anyone do you?

We are new in this region, the Rhone Alps, and what with the credit crunch happening at pretty much the same time we started it has indeed been hard work setting up – but we’re really getting there and now have well over 150 properties to chose from, including ski chalets and apartments, pretty mountain village and valley houses, houses near lakes, with streams, in fact we cover the whole spectrum of great places to buy. The great thing is that although the tourism here is immense due to the winter ski season it is also a stunning and much quieter place to be in the summer.

We take on new properties every day and have a really interesting and varied property portfolio. If you want to browse through simply go to the Leggett Immobilier home page , go to the country map on the right hand side of the page, and highlight the area named French Alps, chose the type of property you want and away you go. Another way to search is by postcode, for example the code for St Martin de Belleville is 73440 and if you put that in you’ll get all the properties that fall under that commune. Or search by property agent.

So let me introduce you to the Rhone Alp team, simply click on the name for all their properties;

Alison Farley has some stunning properties over towards Lac Geneva and also covers Samoëns and Porte du Soleil.

David Cowx is Paradiski and the surrounding valleys

And I, Heather Byrne, cover the Three Valleys, Espace Killy and the lakes – lac d’Annecy and Lac du Bourget – and pretty much everything in between whilst I build up a team over here.

So going back to recruiting estate agents in France we are looking in or near to the following locations Tignes 73, Val d’Isere 73, Valmorel 73, Annecy 74, Chambery 73, Aix-les-Bains 73, Beaufort 74, Belley 01, Albertville 73, Aiguebelle 73, Chamonix 74, Megeve 74, Flumet 74, Sallanches 74, Cluses 74, la Rosiere 73, St Jean de Maurienne, to name but a few and we will be heading towards Grenoble 38 and Lyon 69 plus their surrounding resorts and lakes as well.

Indeed Leggett’s are looking right across France.

Interested? Why not have a look at the recruitment page.