The problem is the apartments are being offered by many "different" agents...so do you have to pay each separate agency to just SEE one of their listings?

The way this works in is that you can visit the apartment for free, but you owe the agent their fee if you take the apartment. This makes it vitally important that you don't let any agent show you an apartment you've already seen with another agent, because if you take the apartment, you'll owe both agents their fee. (No such thing here as fee splitting.)

The other trick is that you need to make your decision quickly if the place is half way decent. (And have all your credit info readily available and complete.) Nice places are in short supply in many areas and most landlords pretty much have their choice of tenants.

 

And you may want to do a little research on GLI - Garantie Loyers Impayé. You will almost certainly come across this requirement and most GLI insurers do not like foreign tenant dossiers. There is a plethora of information online about this subject. Here is just one.

https://www.pap.fr/bailleur/loyers-impayes/lassurance-loyers-impayes-comment-ca-marche/a23663

 

Thank you for the link, I'm at work now but will read it carefully later 🙂

 

Have you ever visited Aix, and if so at what time of the year?

Asida from that, I think you are being very over optimistic about finding a place move into within 30 days.

And I hope Luna will be be following you AFTER you have found a long-term place to live as opposed to travelling with you.

I assume you will be looking for a furnished place. Can't see how you would be able to make this move otherwise.

The places you see on Seloger and other similar sites don't give you the address, neither will an agency give you the address before you have signed up with them.

You may need to look for private rentals rather than those d by an agency. These often have a sign out front with a phone number, and it is often a mobile phone number.

One more thing, how's your your French?

 

Ok...Thanks for the very useful and scary reply LOL.
I have not been to Aix.
What could you be hinting at? Summer heat? Crowds?
I have about 10 acceptable looking apartments in our price range saved to my Seloger ., some with street locations, all with agent info, no good?
It's my understanding that you pay IF an agent shows you an apartment that you take, to be careful not to go see the same apartment with2 different agents or you'll have to pay them both.
As for the initial temporary accommodations, I found many AB&Bs all of which accept pets.
I hear there is a fairly decent sized English speaking expat community, and many places to study and improve...plus my french is pretty good in of functionality, a little weak in technical vocab, grammar...eh, people have always understood me in the past.

 

Double post deleted.

 

We presume you are French (Pierre) and don't need a visa .... ?

 

My mom was born if ..a long time ago, had the chance to leave when the Nazis executed the mayor in the town square....all that was too long a give me citizenship unfortunately.
Also unfortunately, I live in the US. Il est inable de vivre ici maintenant et ma femme et moi voulons partir tant que nous le pouvons... Aussi nous avons des enfants adultes qui, nous espérons vont suivront après notre installation en .

Not french... we will be getting VLS-TS

 

OK, I take it you're planning on moving over there, staying in temporary quarters (the gite or AB&B) while you look for more permanent housing. Different people do those things a bit differently depending on their requirements and intentions. The key thing with the temporary short-term residences is that you should try to find temporary digs where you can receive postal mail (though these days, most stuff comes via email or SMS on your phone). Obviously, the other requirement is Internet connection and/or a French phone number.

Figure on maybe 3 months in your temporary quarters - just in case. Since there are whole bunches of other things you'll need to attend to on arrival - like trying to open a bank (necessary for renting a place and setting up other systems and services), getting a French mobile phone and actually running around with an agent to find a long-term apartment.

 

Sorry I really don't have time at the moment to reply, but I will definitely get back to you, hopefully some time next week.

 

I had real difficuly finding this thread again, so I'm just bumping it up so that I can answer it more fully, maybe tomorrow as it doesn't seem to be too urgent.

 

Thank you, I appreciate that.
I hope your day goes well.