Agent immobilier

n. – real estate agent
Formalité
n. – formality
Armoire or Placard
n. – closet
Volailles
n. – poultry
Volets
n. – shutters

I think I could revolutionize the real estate business here – at least on the rental side. It’s been a while since I rented an apartment, but I remember being catered to a bit more as a renter and know that I catered to the tenant who is now renting my place in New York.

It’s not that the brokers here aren’t polite – they’re rather formal in fact. The first one I met who looked to be barely in his twenties introduced himself as Monsieur So and So, rather than by his first name. I was addressed as Madame Dawn (I think my first name confuses them and then the fact that I don’t use my husband’s name just complicates matters even more).

He showed me a lovely apartment in the 17th in a Haussmannian building with a “gardien” – not exactly a doorman, but definitely not to be called a concierge. It was “vide” or empty, which in France means completely empty so no stove, no refrigerator, no kitchen appliances whatsoever. And while he was proud to show me a sliding door behind which I thought there may be a closet, it was in fact simply the storage for the “ballon d’eau” or hot water balloon.

Built-in closets or "placards" are not easily found in French homes. Instead, you are free to purchase giant armoires, but given all the clothes we have, they would probably take up the entire second bedroom, which sort of defeats the purpose.

So despite its generous size, beautiful parquet floors and traditional fireplace, for the price, the barren kitchen and lack of closets offset the advantages. More than that though, it had too much “vis a vis” or not enough view. Since it was on the interior of the building, it was quiet, but looked directly into other apartments. I explained that I didn’t want to have to live behind the “volailles” which is in fact the word for poultry when I meant to use the word “volets” which is the word for shutters. I think the broker understood me, but at the same time was left traumatized by all my concerns and promptly cancelled our visit to the next apartment explaining that it would probably be too “sombre” dark or somber, if you will, for my tastes. We haven’t heard back from him since.

The remaining apartments we’ve seen with the exception of one have gone from bad to worse. We’ve had two no-shows – one by a broker, one by the owner himself and have seen a fair share of wrecks. One broker showed up late, smoking his cigarette and explained he wasn’t really familiar with the neighborhood or even the apartment itself. As such, we arrived to find it full of people – friends or relatives of the owner. So we had to navigate the visit around their drying laundry and unmade beds, which didn’t really help with our overall impression.

Another one we looked at right here on the Ile St. Louis honestly needed to be demolished in my opinion, but the owner was holding steady to the exorbitant rent because, after all, it’s on the Ile St. Louis. We’ve looked at places that need anywhere from a minimum to a maximum amount of work, but here it’s up to the renter to fix whatever is broken rather than the owner.

I was completely ruined for the search after spending New Year’s Eve at the apartment of a friend. It was on the top floor of a gated building with gardien in the 16th. Almost 2,000 square feet with a wraparound terrace and views of almost all of Paris including of course the Eiffel Tower. Now that’s what I’m talking about! Let’s see if Monsieur So and So can come up with something like that.