Choosing and reserving your ideal property - 02 March 2009

Investing in property requires just as much attention to detail as choosing your own home.

To maximise the profitability of your investment, your property must be:

• Well located in an attractive area well served by public transport links, close to local amenities and within easy reach of shops
• Located in an area that qualifies for one or more of the various French tax incentive schemes (Scellier, Robien recentré and Borloo)
• Medium sized in terms of apartment floor space (2- and 3-room apartments usually generate a better yield)
• Attractive to tenants and well equipped.
  

Bouygues Immobilier developments: quality comes as standard 

In all its developments, Bouygues Immobilier places great emphasis on the architectural quality of the homes, their location and the need to provide the best-possible services for those who live in them... Every one of our developments benefits from 50 years of continuous Bouygues Immobilier experience and expertise. Better still, the company has applied for Habitat & Environnement (H&E) certification for all developments granted planning permission since 1 July 2007. We are one of the first developers in France to make this commitment to our customers.
We pay close attention to the way we sell the various phases of our developments to ensure that our properties are offered to owner-occupiers as well as to investors. None of our developments are reserved exclusively for investors.
The result of this policy is that the vast majority of our residences are occupied by a mixture of owner-occupiers and tenants.
This occupancy profile is essential for investors, because it guarantees joint ownership arrangements under which owners are directly involved in keeping the building well maintained, which is a very important consideration when attracting future tenants.

Bouygues Immobilier offers you three different ways to find out more about its developments of new apartments and houses:

• The web site:
  The www.bouygues-immobilier.com web site features a multi-criteria search engine to help you choose the location, size of property and price range that is right for you. Available 24/7, a few mouse clicks are all it takes to view the details of all the developments that meet your criteria and compare properties at your leisure. When you find a development that particularly interests you, simply click on the appropriate link to receive the brochure by e-mail.
  
  
• The call center :
  If you’d prefer to talk directly with one of our sales advisors, or you'd like to obtain more information about one of our developments, just contact our call centre on (00) 33 (0)1 55 18 7000. Our call centre advisors are available to answer your questions between 9 a.m. and 8 p.m. Monday to Saturday. Your advisor will help you with the selection process, send you all the documentation you require and can arrange a meeting for you with one of our sales team.
  
  
• The sales office:
  What can you expect when you walk into a Bouygues Immobilier sales office? Opened during the marketing phase of every development, the sales office is designed to provide you with advice and information, and there is always a sales advisor on hand to welcome you and discuss your needs. Your sales advisor will show you all the developments that match your profile as an investor. He or she will then provide you with full documentation of any development you may be interested in. You can view the plans, visuals of the development and, in most cases, a model of the future building. Your sales advisor will provide you with detailed information and precise answers to all your questions. All our advisors are property professionals qualified to guide you in your choice of an attractive investment property that will be easy to let. Their aim is to ensure that you gain maximum return from your property investment.
  

The sales office is also the place where you will come to finalise your choice of property and sign the reservation contract (or sales agreement).

Once you have found a suitable property, signing the reservation contract (or sales agreement) confirms your choice, and allocates the property to you at the agreed price. There are two options at this stage:

• Buying off-plan (this is referred to in French as a “vente en l’état futur d’achèvement” or VEFA): in this case, your reservation pack will include the reservation contract, the plans of the property and a written description of all the fixtures and facilities included. You then confirm your commitment to buy by paying a deposit equivalent to 5% of the price of the property (where the completion period is less than one year) or 2% (where the completion period is between one year and two years).
  
• Buying a completed property (this is referred to in French as an “acte authentique de vente” or deed of sale): in this case, your reservation pack contains the sales agreement setting out the specifications of your property and the conditions of sale. Having signed the agreement, you must make a payment on account within eight days of the expiry of the cooling off-period, which is described below.

 

Your purchase step-by-step

Here's what happens once you have signed a reservation contract or sales agreement in one of our sales offices:

• Within 10 days, you will receive a complete reservation pack by post. The documentation it contains will have been initialled and signed by Bouygues Immobilier
• From the day after you receive the reservation pack by registered post, you will have 7 days in which to consider your purchase. This is the official French cooling-off period during which you may cancel your reservation, and after which your reservation becomes binding.

When you reserve a property off-plan, your sales advisor will ask you if you would like to make any changes to your future property using one of our “personalised layout solutions”. This allows you to change the layout of your property by, for example, moving a partition or opening up the kitchen to be continuous with the living area.

Downloading our Côté Intérieur catalogue will show you all the options available to adapt your new property to suit your needs. Naturally, such changes attract an additional charge, must comply with current building regulations and will be subject to compatibility with the stage to which work on the property has already progressed.

Reservation is just the first step towards your property purchase. You can find out more about the remaining steps in these information packs:

• Making your purchase a reality : the process of property ownership, from securing finance to the signature of the deed of sale in the notary's office. 
• Designing the interior of your property : choosing the floor coverings, taps or paint colours that will appeal most to your future tenants. 
• Understanding the construction phases: find out more about the individual building trades as you wait for the construction phase to be completed. 
• • Comprehensive guarantees : Bouygues Immobilier takes enormous care over the design of its developments, and the same is true of the legal guarantees that protect you after completion of construction works.