The Dream of Living in France with Adrian Leeds

Adrian Leeds - property consultant and one of the most recognizable voices in the Franco-American community - has called France home since 1994.

In this episode, she joins Daniel for a thoughtful conversation on life in France, the changes she’s witnessed over the decades, and the reasons she chose to stay. Together, they explore the practical and personal sides of making a life here - from the realities of property in France to the broader question of what truly makes a place feel like home.

Whether you’re considering a move, dreaming from afar, or simply curious about the experience of living here, this episode is an honest conversation about place, lifestyle, and the idea of home.

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:09

I am joined with Adrian Leeds, the infamous, the famous. Adrian, I always want to say that you're a pillar in this whole Franco-American experience. Like you've you're you're one of the pioneers of this whole move to France thing. And you're the housing queen. You've got your newsletter that you go out three times a week. You've got your après-midi events once a month. You've got a financial forum. You are the host of House International Paris Edition. En plus de Toussaint, you have a company, Adrian Leeds Group, where you help people move to France.

SPEAKER_00 0:39

All that is true.

SPEAKER_02 0:40

You're in the deal.

SPEAKER_00 0:43

I'm not even sure how I got here. It's just putting one foot in front of the other.

SPEAKER_02 0:47

Now it happens. What what year did you move to France?

SPEAKER_00 0:50

1994.

SPEAKER_02 0:52

What was what was France like in 1994?

SPEAKER_00 0:55

Compared to now?

SPEAKER_02 0:56

Yeah. How has it changed?

SPEAKER_00 0:58

Um, I think that's a matter of perception because my own viewpoint would be so different now that I know it so well, right? Because when you're a newcomer and you're just experiencing everything is brand new. Language is new, everything is new. And I've watched it grow up in a in a in a way. I can remember when there were the Minitel, which was sort of a precursor to the internet. And then there was the internet and we had mail. Gee, we had mail, actual email. That was amazing. Uh and uh I I saw the French go from not being able to type on a you know on a computer to actually really getting into it and becoming very, very computer literate. In some ways, even more advanced than I think American.

SPEAKER_02 1:50

I I one of my theories is also that France became a lot less car-centric in the past 30 years.

SPEAKER_00 1:55

Well, they're working really hard at removing vehicles and pollution. So um they're doing everything they can to bring life back into the center cities rather than the suburbs like we have in the US. In fact, it's one of my big complaints. About I find that Americans live in their bubble, the car.

SPEAKER_01 2:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:17

Because they have no choice. You know, the only city that really has great public transportation where you can live without a car is New York. And otherwise, you're, you know, you're going from your house to the car, from the car to the grocery store, the bank, or the whatever, and you never actually commune with people, which is so different than a European lifestyle where life is based on the center cities, the 15-minute city where everything is accessible by foot, and it changes your your lifestyle completely.

SPEAKER_02 2:48

Would you say that Paris or Nice are 15-minute cities?

SPEAKER_00 2:51

Oh, absolutely. Nice, you can walk from one end of town to the other.

SPEAKER_02 2:55

I think Nice very much so is a 15-minute city. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:57

But so it's Paris, each neighborhood is its complete own little city, little entity.

SPEAKER_02 3:02

I think that's I think that's true. Uh I mean, walking from Paris end to end probably is like an hour and a half of a walk. But you're not going to go out and do that because you don't need to do that. You're seeing the same things 20 times over, you know. As you said, that's the case.

SPEAKER_00 3:13

You stay in your own quartier. Exactly. It's all there, absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 3:17

That's what I liked when I first moved. I was in Place de Fett in the 19th. And I was on Place de Fett. So I had three different grocery stores, like major big-size grocery stores. I had multiple boulangeries, I had access to the Parc Bout Chaumont, which is right there. I had everything that I would need right there. I didn't even need to really really take the metro because I was already kind of good.

SPEAKER_00 3:34

Um, unless you had to get to something on the other part of town. But you didn't really need to leave your quartier to get anything done. Not really. Right. You can easily be a hundred years old and still have a life. I have a neighbor in Paris who's 103, living by herself in a studio apartment.

SPEAKER_02 3:52

You know, a nursing home is in theory a three-minute city. It's like everything is a porti de mange, like right next to you, whether it's down the hallway or down the elevator or what have you.

SPEAKER_00 4:01

And yeah.

SPEAKER_02 4:02

That's basically having the city be an extension of that.

SPEAKER_00 4:05

Yes, but then you're surrounded by nothing but old people, okay? And there's not much going on. Let's face it. If you're in the city, you've got everything.

SPEAKER_02 4:13

Is Nice a city of old people?

SPEAKER_00 4:16

Nice is clearly one of the country's retirement communities, but it is definitely not a city of old people. It's not geriatric. No, no, no, no. I mean, you will see a lot of older couples or whoever, you'll see people in wheelchairs and walkers, but it's not the only thing you see on the street. There's lots of universities, there are a lot of young people.

SPEAKER_02 4:38

I've always felt like if it's not Paris, it's Nice. Like it's like the next, it's like the second city of France.

SPEAKER_00 4:42

There is a kind of a playfulness here that doesn't really exist in most of France that I think, first of all, you've got the sun. You've got 300 plus days a year of sunshine. And look, it's pouring in and it makes everybody happy. Um, but it's also, I think, the Italian influence. This was Savoie up until 1860. It was part of the Italian Empire. And uh, I think there's a kind of a an esprit that's here that doesn't really exist much of anywhere else in France.

SPEAKER_02 5:13

I I like that word that you just said, you said it it's playful. Would you describe the French in general as playful?

SPEAKER_00 5:19

No, but but the niçois I would. You know, even if you look around, you'll see art, art in the city, public art, that has a kind of frivolous idea to it everywhere. And you think it that would that wouldn't go in Paris. It wouldn't be serious enough for Paris. But they want to have that playfulness. It's all about, you know, enjoying life.

SPEAKER_02 5:43

Now it's kind of fun for us, you and me, we've been in in in France for a good long while to play this game of which one's better fit for us, Paris or Nice. But if you had to pick between France and the United States, that opens a whole nother can of worms. I feel like America's easy. I feel like America's changing constantly and radically, but particularly in 2020 uh five and twenty twenty-six going forward. I feel like America's taken on a different tenor than what it's been in the past. I feel like I left America in Obama's hands. And and uh and I feel like I recognize it less and less.

SPEAKER_00 6:15

When I left, it was had nothing to do with politics. In 1994, it had zero to do with politics. In spite of the politics, I would never choose the United States over France, in spite of the politics. Because of the politics, I know damn well I'm never going back, and I'm looking forward to getting my citizenship here, and I'm gonna feel very good about that in case I should ever want to renounce my US citizenship. What's happening in the US for me is really horribly upsetting because this is my home country that I never dreamed would get to this point.

SPEAKER_01 6:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 6:52

You know, I understand the politics between the right and the left, okay, it swings back and forth, all that's normal, but as long as we still have a democracy, we can have a life. But uh, what's happening there uh since Donald Trump's in office is just inexcusable. I am pretty open about my political beliefs. And um the right, they tell me two interesting things. First, they tell me that I shouldn't be writing about politics in my own newsletter, which cracks me up since it's mine and I get to say whatever I want. And the other thing they tell me is that it's gonna hurt my business. And I think, wow, they care more about money and business than they do about morality. That's interesting. Because I think morality is way more important than how I'm gonna line my pockets. I'm not gonna prostitute myself just to make money. So that's really for me a big difference between the right and the left. And uh so yeah, if they don't like me, then they don't like me, and that's all there is to it.

SPEAKER_02 8:00

There's a point that you raised earlier that I wanted to circle back to uh about renounce renouncing US citizenship.

SPEAKER_00 8:05

Just on Oh, it's kind of a joke because I probably wouldn't do it, but go ahead.

SPEAKER_02 8:09

Yeah, no, I mean uh just it makes more sense if we were living in Switzerland or something. The French tax regime is slightly higher than the US one. So if you're not a US tax resident and you're French and you're living in France, you're under the French tax regime. So there's no I I feel like the the primary reason why a person renounces it is for financial reasons. And if we're living here in France, there's no real reason to renounce US citizenship. It only makes sense if you're going to a different country that has a like a lighter tax regime. Um and that's why I I've never really seen any client want to renounce US citizenship once they become French. No, it's there's no real reason.

SPEAKER_00 8:40

There's no real reason to, and and not only that, but it's it's a serious, it's a serious thing. I mean, I have to hope and pray that the country will turn itself around.

SPEAKER_02 8:49

Yeah. Yeah. Um, but that the argument for you to renounce it or versus for me to renounce it, it's different situations. Like I'm always thinking about, okay, well, what if you know I've got parents that are falling sick, I need to spend more, you know, four months at a time in the US. I don't want to have to go out and ask for a US-based, you know, visa. That would sound crazy to my ears. So that's why I would never want to renounce U.S. citizenship in any event.

SPEAKER_00 9:09

Yeah, but we're probably lucky if we can still get in with our citizenship if we're traveling to the United States right now. I don't know what to expect, they customs.

SPEAKER_02 9:18

Well, there was uh a Republican senator out of Ohio that was trying to ban dual nationality. Uh and then there's another proposition, I think it's called the SAFE Act, that requires voting in person with a passport, which would block us unless we're flying back for election day from being able to vote.

SPEAKER_00 9:32

Yeah, and what happens? And what happens to us if that happens?

SPEAKER_02 9:35

Well, then we wouldn't have the ability to vote. Like that's what the Brits do right now. If the Brits live abroad, they don't get the right vote.

SPEAKER_00 9:40

And we'd have to choose between our French citizenship and our US citizenship, and then and then who what do you choose?

SPEAKER_02 9:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 9:46

I mean, there's no question for me.

SPEAKER_02 9:48

I think there's really no question for you. Because especially like if my thought is, okay, what if my parents in their retirement age need help? But you are already like there's no question for you to help.

SPEAKER_00 9:57

I have no parents.

SPEAKER_02 9:58

I have no parents to worry about. And if ever one find that you stopped working, which I would have a very hard time seeing because you're because you plug away, you're already here in France. Like you would have your retirement days here in France. Of course. You wouldn't go back to the States.

SPEAKER_00 10:10

No, no. So And my daughter's in the process of moving back to France in order to educate her son here in France and not in the US for all the obvious reasons.

SPEAKER_02 10:21

So so for you, there's you know, I think your ties are even less strong than for me. I feel like I've lived, you know, the first 26 years or so of my life in America before coming over here.

SPEAKER_00 10:29

Um I have a lot more, I have a lot more years on you.

SPEAKER_02 10:33

Now uh let's uh let's talk more about your specialization, which is housing. How did you get into housing?

SPEAKER_00 10:39

I didn't happen to it, it happened to me. I was working for International Living at the time, and their readers wanted someone who could help them find property in Paris. And um, so International Living said, Well, is this something you can do? And I said, Well, I don't know anything about this, but I can find somebody who does. So I hired a property finder, and that was really the beginning of it.

SPEAKER_02 11:02

What was the hardest thing to learn in getting into housing?

SPEAKER_00 11:05

I think that when you've got good resources around you, you know, very soon after that I met Martin Di Mateo, who's my number one designer and contractor. Um, and then I started doing my own properties. I started buying and renovating my own properties with her assistants, and you know, you learn by the seat of your pants. And then by the time you get finished, you're you've got it under your belt.

SPEAKER_02 11:29

What's the oldest property that you've sold?

SPEAKER_00 11:31

Uh house in Normandy that's uh was 12th and 13th century.

SPEAKER_02 11:35

Oh, that's cool.

SPEAKER_00 11:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 11:37

Is it more fun to sell in Paris or to sell in Nice?

SPEAKER_00 11:41

Well, we're not salespeople. Okay. Let's start with that.

SPEAKER_02 11:44

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 11:44

We do list a few properties, but we'll only list properties that we would recommend our clients buy. So we're property consultants and we find property. So we're on the buyer side, not the seller's side. I don't want to have to be on the sales side, actually.

SPEAKER_02 11:59

What's the best piece of advice you have for a buyer looking to buy in France who's kind of clueless about how France works?

SPEAKER_00 12:05

Oh, they should never do it on their own. It's that simple. I mean, anyone who's who's not really familiar with France uh should never attempt doing this on their own, whether it's with us or some other firm. Because there's no multiple listing service. That means that the agents work only for the seller. They only want to sell the property. So they're not gonna tell you why you should not buy that property. They're not gonna show you all the problems with it.

SPEAKER_02 12:33

Well, they have to do on some level with the vs Vice Cachet, they can't like divulge certain, you know, flaws, like core flaws in the property.

SPEAKER_00 12:41

Core flaws, yes. But they're not gonna say, you know, this location might not be ideal for you because it will take you too long to get to your daughter on the other side of town. You know, they're not gonna say, you know, this kitchen really needs an update, and you can expect to spend 10 or 15,000 euros to do that. They're not gonna say those things. We're gonna say those things.

SPEAKER_02 13:05

Yeah. Afford of experience too. When um when I we've only bought a house once in France, and in, you know, God willing, it'll be our forever home. Um, and that we met with the real estate agent, and I at one point asked her, you know, are you representing the seller? Are you representing the buyer? And she's like, Oh, no, no, no, I'm a neutral party.

SPEAKER_00 13:22

Uh-uh, no, no, no, no, no. And so then we're in the suburbs here. That's a lot.

SPEAKER_02 13:27

We have a backyard, and we are walking through the backyard, and there's a beautiful tree. And I go, What kind of tree is this? And she pauses and she looks at me, and you could see her like calculating. She said, Figier. Oh no, she said sterisier, so cherry tree. And I felt like she was saying whatever tree you want it to be, dude. Like, I I will tell you whatever you need to hear so you can buy this property.

SPEAKER_00 13:47

Let me find out, or whatever. Right.

SPEAKER_02 13:49

Yeah. Because because ultimately she's not working in my interest as a the seller's agent, as a real estate agent. So I think that's the the real utility of a buyer's agent like yourself is someone that can kind of step in and say, listen, we're here to protect your interests. This property that you're looking at may or may not be in the in your best interests.

SPEAKER_00 14:05

Absolutely, that is exactly what we do. Um, there are buyer's agents in France, but they they are they hold a very poor position because by law they cannot take any kind of advance payment for the work. They have to share the commission with the selling agency. The selling agencies don't want to share commission with them, and therefore the agencies won't show them the best properties. So they don't have access to good properties. We're hired by the buyer, we're paid by the buyer to do that. So it's an extra fee for the buyer.

SPEAKER_01 14:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:44

But we're the insurance policy, we're doing the due diligence, we're going to ensure that they make a really good purchase. When we have a commission share with the selling agency because we're a licensed agency, then we refund that back to our client. So about half the time in Nice, never in Paris, because appreciate agencies will not share commissions, but we can save them quite a bit of money by doing that.

SPEAKER_02 15:07

Now there's no MLS. Uh you and I did a video uh a while back and I posted it, and everyone in the comment section started talking about Sologer, Sologer.

SPEAKER_00 15:15

That's not an MLS.

SPEAKER_02 15:16

What is Sologer then?

SPEAKER_00 15:18

It's just a website, it's a portal. It's a poor it's a large portal where most of the agencies advertise their properties. That does not make it an MLS.

SPEAKER_02 15:27

So what's the difference what's the difference between Sologer and an MLS?

SPEAKER_00 15:31

Well, the multiple listing service is an enormous network where all properties in the United States actually aggregate into this one system. So when a property is put on the market, it's available to everyone at the same time. And the agents know they're going to share their commissions. It's just a given.

SPEAKER_02 15:52

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 15:53

So if you go to an agent, one agent has access to everything. That's not true here.

SPEAKER_02 15:59

But like let's say that you're Century 21 and you post a property here in France on Souloger, any person on the market could theoretically go to the website and look at it, right?

SPEAKER_00 16:07

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 16:08

So doesn't that mean that you still have access to all properties?

SPEAKER_00 16:10

Or because it's not all properties.

SPEAKER_02 16:13

Not everything's on Sologer?

SPEAKER_00 16:14

No, you have to pay dearly to advertise a property on Sologer. It's not, it's not a universal network. It's just a portal.

SPEAKER_02 16:22

So if that's one of the networks but it doesn't contain everything, then how does a person find the coolest property or the best fit for them? How do they know?

SPEAKER_00 16:30

They hire us.

SPEAKER_02 16:32

Well, there's the commercial, there you go, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:34

It's pretty simple. Either you do the legwork yourself, yeah. Okay, or you hire someone to do the legwork for you. But there's a big difference. An individual won't have the same clout that we have.

SPEAKER_01 16:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:46

Because we represent a lot of clients. So when we work with, and it's professional to professional, it's network. And we're not, we're holding the hand of the foreign buyer, and they don't have to do that. That's a lot of work answering all those questions, making sure the foreign buyer understands everything. Right? So they love us because we just bring them business.

SPEAKER_02 17:08

That's lovely. Um, now you've got your show, House Lunchers International, and one of my friends who likes to watch your episodes frames uh every episode goes this way. They show up, they say, I want to buy this big place in the Marie, and you could say, Okay, let's go on a little tour, and you show them what they could actually get in the Marie, and they say, Okay, maybe not in the Moray, and then they go else outward to what they can maybe afford, or what's more realistic, or what's more spacious. Does that sound like a pretty accurate way of what happens on your show?

SPEAKER_00 17:34

Well, okay, there's always there's there's always a storyline that starts with the what's called the contributor. It's usually a couple, but not always. And of course, they want to either rent or purchase and they have certain parameters. It's all just like anybody would go through, right? You decide, okay, I'm looking for a one-bedroom apartment in this area, blah, blah, blah, right? Um, and then the show formula is to visit three properties, and then at the end they decide which one they're gonna take. It's not complicated.

SPEAKER_02 18:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 18:08

Um and it's actually pretty close to reality.

SPEAKER_02 18:12

How often do you fall in love with that property so much that you have to keep it for yourself and you can't even let your clients get it?

SPEAKER_00 18:19

That's happened a couple of times. It has. It's happened a couple of times. Um, in fact, I'm renovating an apartment right now in Nice for myself that um I probably should have turned into a fractional ownership, but I didn't want to do that.

SPEAKER_02 18:35

I mean, I guess it's kind of a silly question, but do you how often do you fall in love with an apartment? Or is it like every apartment you basically love, or you can appreciate or see the qualities of it?

SPEAKER_00 18:43

No, I don't fall in love very often.

SPEAKER_02 18:45

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 18:46

No. I I see a lot, I'm very critical.

SPEAKER_02 18:49

Oh, good.

SPEAKER_00 18:50

Yeah, I'm way I'm I'm the most critical person on the staff.

SPEAKER_02 18:54

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 18:54

I'm trying to teach my staff to be as critical as me.

SPEAKER_02 18:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 18:59

Um, which is not easy because I see every tiny little flaw. So for example, okay, um, there are lots of apartments where you enter a foyer and then the rooms pivot off that foyer, and I call that a star configuration. Like right, like a star shape, right? And it at first glance that just looks great. But the truth is that the foyer becomes the heart of the apartment. I don't like these apartments.

SPEAKER_01 19:28

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 19:29

Okay, I'm anti, I'm anti-star apartments because then you're going into the living room, back to the foyer, to the kitchen, back to the foyer, to the bedroom, back to the foyer, and the heart becomes the foyer, and you find everybody standing around in the foyer.

SPEAKER_01 19:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 19:42

So I much prefer when there's an open living space, and then the bedrooms pivot off that. So um, this past year, my daughter and I were looking up for apartments to buy for her. And um an apartment came available, and the minute I walked in, I mean, I didn't have to look at the rooms, I just walked in and went, This is it. And I said to her, Oh my god, you're gonna love this apartment. And she walked in, she was like, Oh yeah, I love this apartment. And that was because you entered one large room, there was a bedroom on one side, a bedroom on the other side, and there was a heart, a real heart. And then there were no supporting walls, which meant we could completely reconfigure it. And that's what we're doing.

SPEAKER_02 20:27

That's good. No, I I they called that like a salle de séjour, like where you can kind of like the the where you can end up living. Um, and yeah, you don't want to have like a the foyer be just the middle of it.

SPEAKER_00 20:37

You want to have that exactly, and then you also it when you have like a lot of hallways and you're you end up you losing space and then you're going up and down the hallways instead of it all feeling like it flows.

SPEAKER_02 20:51

And I I've often felt like, especially in Paris, we count every square meter in terms of apartment space because you're paying, you know, 10,000 euros per square meter. Oh yes, you're paying for every space. And I feel like there's much more hallways in French apartments than I have ever experienced that have lived in a few different American cities. That like in every every hallway that you have to make to connect you to the various rooms is just end up being lost space because you're only using it as for three to three seconds to get onto your next location.

SPEAKER_00 21:15

I think that's primarily Hausmannian. The Hausmonnian buildings were designed originally where the kitchen was at the very back of the apartment for the servants with their own entrance. And they'd have to go down a long hall to get to the dining room. And they were actually designed to keep the servants away.

SPEAKER_02 21:35

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 21:36

I'm not particularly fond of Hausmannian apartments.

SPEAKER_02 21:38

Actually, could for the audience who may not know, can you define what a Hausmannian apartment is and what are the flaws? Well, what are the pros and cons, really?

SPEAKER_00 21:45

Well, Hausmannian apartments are those, these are the buildings that were designed and built from 1860s through 1910 or so. Um, as part of the Baron Hausman plan to reconfigure the city. They were mostly on boulevards. They're gorgeous buildings. It's what most people think of Paris.

SPEAKER_01 22:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:05

Okay, Hasmonia buildings are sort of what's made Paris. But their design was very, very specific, as I said, where the servants were in the back. And then every room has a fireplace. And that fireplace is a is a supporting wall which cannot be altered. And it broke up the room. So I mean it was great for them then because a lot of people could live in those apartments.

SPEAKER_02 22:28

With a lot of kids.

SPEAKER_00 22:29

With a lot of kids with a lot of heat because of the fireplaces. But in today's world, you can't open the space because of the structural walls. And you don't really need the fireplaces anymore. We have central heating. So they just they have they have to be reconfigured to work in today's lifestyle, and they're not always easy.

SPEAKER_02 22:51

Yeah, and oftentimes these fireplaces nowadays are not even available. They're kind of like blocked off. So it looks like you can't even use it. It's just like design, you know, you know, oh, okay, there is the heart the hearth in the fireplace, but it's sealed.

SPEAKER_00 23:02

Um and I see it and think, oh, that would be a perfect place for a dresser where I can store my clothing with a mirror in front of it, you know, on top. And and and not why waste the space with for a fireplace?

SPEAKER_02 23:15

Can you confirm? I think there's a couple of flaws in Hausmannian apartments nowadays to our standards. The floors are creaky, the walls are thin, the plumbing is questionable.

SPEAKER_00 23:26

Oh no, that's not true. Okay, well that'll make a generalization. Yeah, those are definitely generalizations.

SPEAKER_02 23:31

Aren't the walls too thin in Osmanny? Can't you hear what your neighbors are always doing?

SPEAKER_00 23:34

Not necessarily.

SPEAKER_02 23:36

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 23:36

I think it depends on the building, depends on what the insulation that's been used in inside the apartment. You can always go in and insulate. I mean, that's not a problem. You can do that yourself. In today's world, more and more people are insulating because of the despay, you know, the the energy ratings. In order to get the energy ratings up, you have to do insulation.

SPEAKER_02 24:00

But I mean, this is just maybe my own anecdotal experience. I've always felt like hanging around various friends' apartments in Paris, I can hear much more what the neighbors are doing or the walking, you know, above and below than ever it was on the US side with like, you know, modern style uh construction of apartments in America.

SPEAKER_00 24:15

Uh parquet floors can do that. You know, you can, especially old parquet floors if they're kind of floating and creaky. Yeah, that ha it happens, but you can fix that too.

SPEAKER_02 24:24

What do you run against when you're um trying to either do renovations or having like a house that's really cool or an apartment that's cool but needs some work? For example, I'm thinking of there's a lot of like historical area restrictions. Like if you're near a historical building, you have to get extra approval. If the building itself is deemed of like cultural value, you can't modify it. Do you feel like you're running to some roadblocks there?

SPEAKER_00 24:46

Um, that's pretty much true for every building in Paris and in these two. You cannot make changes to the exterior of the building without permission of the homeowner association as well as the city. So, and I mean that I think that's fairly standard procedure. That would make sense. It's not your building.

SPEAKER_02 25:09

I had a um a client tell me, Daniel, I think I'm doing something wrong. I'm looking for an apartment in Paris, and when I search, I only find five. And I go, Well, what are you putting in your like requirements? And she goes, Well, I have to have AC.

SPEAKER_00 25:23

Oh, well, forget that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 25:24

Yeah. And I said, and I said, That's there's there isn't, you know, that's just not a standard feature.

SPEAKER_00 25:29

No.

SPEAKER_02 25:29

And I think that's one of the things that Americans really have to understand about French apartments is that you have this vision of what France is, but it's not gonna have AC.

SPEAKER_00 25:36

Well, these buildings were built centuries ago. They didn't have air conditioning then. And then there are restrictions on what you can do on the exterior of the building, so you can't put a compressor outside. So to create an apartment that has air conditioning, you have to have uh special features. As it turns out, the apartment that my daughter and I uh purchased for her, it's the top floor, so we have permission to put a compressor on the roof, so she's gonna be able to air condition it. And here um in Nice I have a balcony, so my compressor's on the balcony, and you're and that that you're free to do, yes. Okay, especially in Nice, because you need it a lot more in Nice than you do in Paris.

SPEAKER_02 26:14

Yeah. Because I mean, like heating in the summer and the winter is is radiators, and France has all kinds of radiators. What is the most common renovation that a person has to go undergo when they buy a property, whether it's Paris or Nice?

SPEAKER_00 26:24

Bathrooms and kitchens. You start with that, you you're doing the whole thing. Now um that's called plumbing, electricity.

SPEAKER_02 26:31

Um when I had uh when I lived in the 15th, we had like an ice box feature that was a that was part of our bathroom. Whereas like part of the wall would just kind of carve out towards the exterior surface.

SPEAKER_00 26:42

Oh, a garde manger.

SPEAKER_02 26:43

Garde manger, sure.

SPEAKER_00 26:44

It's a box that sits out of the oh out from the window. Right? You open the window and then you access the box. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 26:54

Did you like that? It was it was more like an indentation in the wall, where I think it was something like a garde manger, something where it would kind of keep things cool, but then they modernize it and kind of convert it into part of the bathroom because the bathroom had been the kitchen prior.

SPEAKER_00 27:05

Exactly. That's exactly right. That's what you whenever you this is the greatest place to put a compressor. If you have a good-sized garde manger in a Hausmannian building, then you can put a compressor inside and nobody'll see it. It'll be hidden. I look for them all the time. But that was designed to keep food cool, right? So it sat outside, so you put your cheeses and whatever.

SPEAKER_02 27:28

Can I have you define some words for us? What is Pied terre?

SPEAKER_00 27:31

A piedater? There's many definitions of that. Basically, it means a foothold, right? It's a little piece of earth. Piedater. It could mean an apartment that you use from time to time, like having a vacation home. But uh it's also used more universally. Yeah, small occasional apartment.

SPEAKER_02 27:54

Yeah, I kind of think of it as a a foothold in a certain place. You kind of a touchdown point. What about coup de coeur?

SPEAKER_00 27:59

Oh, love at first sight.

SPEAKER_02 28:01

When that sometimes when you go online to see housing announcements, they like switch into all caps when they're talking about certain words that they want us to draw your attention to. And I always like in my like inner voice start like shouting what they're saying right there. Like they'll, you know, say like, Cartier O'Conn! Like Merry Kam Cartier, coup de coeur. Um but yeah, you see that all the time in housing announcements, the coup de coeur.

SPEAKER_00 28:22

Um they want to get your attention.

SPEAKER_02 28:24

Yeah. Um, how many are are most apartments kind of like box, you know, cookie cutter, like all kind of resemble each other, or to what extent is there a large variety of apartments in in Paris, do or in France?

SPEAKER_00 28:37

Well, the cookie cutter apartments are only in the contemporary buildings.

SPEAKER_02 28:41

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 28:41

Let's face it. Yeah. Okay. But that's not going to be in central Paris or central Nice. They're going to be in more of the suburbs, the outskirts.

SPEAKER_02 28:50

And is it much more cookie-cutter than you would say in the suburbs of Paris?

SPEAKER_00 28:54

Oh, yeah, absolutely. Where there are developers.

SPEAKER_02 28:56

Let's do uh a rapid fire. The 92. Do you like it?

SPEAKER_00 28:59

The Haute-Seine?

SPEAKER_02 29:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 29:02

Okay, let's put it this way. It's there are still lots of beautiful suburbs in Paris.

SPEAKER_02 29:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 29:08

Um, I would not want to live in them, and I don't recommend our clients live in them.

SPEAKER_02 29:12

In any of the suburbs?

SPEAKER_00 29:13

No.

SPEAKER_02 29:14

Do you treat them all equally? Or are there some that you're acquainted with? Oh.

SPEAKER_00 29:16

No, there are some. Okay, the Western suburbs tend to generally be nicer, have good RER access, and there are a lot of um uh bilingual schools, so for families with kids that want to go to an international school. So the western suburbs, I'd say, would be that. Um, the suburbs that have access with the metro, so the metro ends in those suburbs, even if they're outside of the periphery, I think that's a good situation because in you don't have to get on an RER to get to them. Uh, but I do believe in in as much as possible living in central Paris.

SPEAKER_02 29:55

Why?

SPEAKER_00 29:57

You know, it's a funny thing, it's psychological. Your friends aren't going to come visit you if you're outside the periphery.

SPEAKER_02 30:03

My friends don't come visit us. We've got a lovely house that no one wants to get to because we're not well connected.

SPEAKER_00 30:07

Even if you're well connected, there's a psychological barrier about the periphery. And when you're living outside, now you come in every day because you have an office.

SPEAKER_02 30:17

Right.

SPEAKER_00 30:17

If you did not have an office, you probably wouldn't come into town there very much.

SPEAKER_02 30:22

I would want to because I love Paris, but yeah, I wouldn't have a good round grounds or reason to.

SPEAKER_00 30:27

It's not like you can just go home and change your shoes. No. Now, interestingly enough, I just spent a weekend in Lille, and we have uh lots of clients there, and I met with some Americans living there. And Lille is an hour on the TGV to Paris. And it's so easy that it's easier to get from Lille to Paris than it is from a Paris suburb on the RER.

SPEAKER_02 30:51

Depending on the suburbs. Some of them are really like far out there. Mont-la-Jolie is more than an hour outside of Paris.

SPEAKER_00 30:56

Yes, and you're on a slow train, and then the exactly. And this is so then you can really be in a real city, not just a suburb. You can have access to a lot more and still have access, easy access to Paris. So I would rather see them live in Lille than in a suburb of Paris.

SPEAKER_02 31:14

That's funny. I think you're a hater of the suburbs. I think I I think the suburbs are stellar, depending on the suburb. Like I think it goes city by city.

SPEAKER_00 31:22

I'm not um I just I like being dead center. You see where I am? I'm as dead center in Nice as you can possibly be.

SPEAKER_02 31:30

And maybe that's a personality type too. I think you and I love being dead center.

SPEAKER_00 31:35

I love being dead center.

SPEAKER_02 31:36

Maybe other people don't like being dead center. Maybe it's like an introvert-extrovert thing.

SPEAKER_00 31:39

Okay, I I talk to people every single day. And they often say to me, but I don't wanna I don't want to own a car, I don't want to drive a car, but I wanna have a house with a garden because I love to garden. And I'm going, uh, okay. My first comment is the reason you're gardening is because there's nothing else to do. Okay, let's just understand that. When you're living out in the suburbs and all you have is garden, and in order to see your friends, you gotta drive to and from and make arrangements. It's not the same as walking out your door and having everything at your toes. Let's face it, right? So get a nice balcony, grow some herbs, get happy, and then you won't have a car, and believe me, you'll have a fabulous life.

SPEAKER_02 32:25

To what extent do you feel like you're selling your clients a dream?

SPEAKER_00 32:28

I don't need to sell them the dream. I'm just gonna make the dream come true. They've already got the dream, that's already sold. Uh, the idea though is to take the dream and turn it into a reality, and that is what we do every single day.

SPEAKER_02 32:40

Yeah. Uh and I feel like you do the same thing. I think we're we're both in the dream business. No, like people have a a an eye-a-fixation almost sometimes on France. They they've seen it, and for I would almost say for a lot of Americans, it's been this like, oh, for 30 years, I've wanted to live in France, and now you know it's early retirement and it's finally possible, or with changes in um the working situation, people are ready to make the move for here to France. Um, and that's a huge difference, I would say, between my Americans and my Brits is that my Brits could move here 30 years ago, and they did. So they're already here on a 10-year card. And my Americans have always kind of felt limited by the barriers of immigration, and now they're just finally coming to realize in the past you know six years or so, actually, it's more doable than we thought. There is a way for a person who wants to move to France to actually make that move over to here to France. And then you're the other side of the equation to say, and there's a place for you to live here in France. Should you want to find the right spot, talk to Adrian.

SPEAKER_00 33:31

So, what's the question?

SPEAKER_02 33:32

I don't think it was a question. I think it was me just talking to you. No, I guess, or conversely, um dreams aren't real by definition. There's realities too, and I think there's every reality possible with an apartment. When we bought, we didn't uh know that we needed to fix the electricity, and that was like a 20, you know, that was like a several thousand euro bill. Uh and then we realized the next year the roof needed to get fixed, and that was 16,000.

SPEAKER_00 33:55

And so Are you in a house or an apartment?

SPEAKER_02 33:58

House, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 33:58

Well, see, okay, but that's what comes with a house. I had a client this week who said, yeah, but we're f if we're in an apartment, we're gonna pay homeowner association fees. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 34:08

I don't have that, but yeah, some Right.

SPEAKER_00 34:10

Okay, so you're gonna pay homeowner association fees. They happen to be very reasonable here, like 45 euros per square meter per year, compared to the U.S. homeowner association fees. But they hadn't thought about, well, but if it's your house, you're gonna have a lot more expense if you're in charge of the whole building. With a homeowner association, you're sharing the expense of the operations of the building with all the other owners. So it's very inexpensive. And they hadn't really thought of it that way. But yeah.

SPEAKER_02 34:38

Well, I almost want to give you um pushback because I know your own housing troubles from you know two years ago or so, where all of a sudden the the thing starts collapsing in the the your building had to put in posts in your living room and then they scraped it all clean, all your precious things that you spent years developing. Yes, that all had to go away because you're in a building. And I feel like when you're at least when you're in a house, you get you have more say. You don't have to ask for permission of your neighbor below and above to do this or that. You can kind of just act. And I like that sense of independence that you can get from being a house owner rather than being an apartment owner.

SPEAKER_00 35:10

There there is that, but you maintain the total responsibility all the time.

SPEAKER_02 35:14

Yeah, it's on you.

SPEAKER_00 35:16

Now, okay, granted, my situation was pretty unusual because but it's a 17th-century building. And so I sort of feel that what I'm doing is protecting the patrimony of Paris. Yeah. By protecting this building, by making sure the structure is, you know, in good shape.

SPEAKER_02 35:35

Let me ask you a final question, Adrian. Was it worth Adrian making a move here to France?

SPEAKER_00 35:39

I that's the most ridiculous question I've ever heard. I came for one year. I it was impossible to leave. You cannot leave this lifestyle. You'd have to have a really good reason to want to give it up. Um, the move itself was actually pretty easy at the time. The struggle had to do with being able to maintain a life here, you know, and and support myself. That was the real struggle.

SPEAKER_02 36:08

But it was worth it.

SPEAKER_00 36:09

Well, of course. I mean, I would never I don't regret anything. I would never go back. Never.

SPEAKER_02 36:16

Yeah. Well, thank you so much for coming on our on our channel, Adrian.

SPEAKER_00 36:20

Anytime, anytime. Thank you, Daniel.