Yesterday we finally signed the documents to sell our apartment in Grenoble, and thus finalized the 6-month project. It did not take that long because there was so much to do, but the delay was imposed by the French bureaucracy and errors made by the buyers’ bank. Our apartment had only been on market for a couple of days when the first viewers made an offer, which we  happily accepted. Huge thanks is due to our excellent real-estate agent Tess from Le Rouge & Le Noir Immobilier: she and her colleagues took awesome pictures and created a virtual visit video of our apartment (actually the same video was a big help for our moving company in estimating the volume of our belongings!). Tess was just starting her own business, and out apartment sale was the first one she finalized. Congratulations!

We (the buyers and us) signed the ‘Promesse de vente’ on December 7th  last year, a document in which we promised to sell the apartment and the buyers promised to buy it for the price offered. Then the buyers had three  months (until March 4th) to get a loan offer from their bank, after which the deal would have expired. Well they did not quite get the offer by then, so the deadline was extended. Actually, getting the loan was not the real problem — they knew all along that they would get it (we had the same issue), but what delayed the process was the insurance that comes with the loan, which determines loan terms and conditions. And to get the insurance they (and we for our loan)  had to fill a lot of paperwork: for us it was because of our age (health screenings etc.), and for them because of their mountaineering and climbing activities. After getting the loan offer, they (and we too)  had to wait for 11 days before accepting it. And then the bank took some extra days to arrange the money. And now we are here — we don’t have the money yet, but we know it is on its way.

We are very happy, and more or less relieved, that our apartment sold so “fast” (although I felt a little wistful when leaving the apartment the last time yesterday morning — after all it was the first place we owned together). Every now and then I have been checking the selling/buying portal (leboncoin.fr), where we found our house, and see the same apartments still being on sale after months or even years.