View from the Immobilier: ‘Lockdown Has Pushed People into Making Concrete Decisions’

This week we hear from Andrew Hosker of Blue Sky Immobilier in Nice, a bilingual online agency who have recently joined the FrenchEntrée network.

“Blue Sky Immobilier theoretically started 15 years ago when two friends from university were discussing the possibility of starting a property business together. Things didn’t quite fall into place but the idea remained. Fast forward 13 years, Bryan and I are reunited in Nice and the whole process started again – how could we create a property business that resembled us?

Finally in January 2020, after a lot of brainstorming and building, we were able to launch!

We have created a bilingual online estate agency that puts our customers first, a combination which is rare on the Côte d’Azur. We started strongly but after just two months Covid-19 struck and we were stuck at home.

We spent the confinement period calling and reassuring our buyers and sellers, refining our marketing tools and most of all looking forward to getting back out there.

Everyone has a different theory on how things will pan out; I can only share our experience since the “déconfinement”. Almost a month after lockdown and we’re fully up and running and to be honest things look good. We believe that during the confinement period people had the chance to stop and assess their plans and the experience has ultimately pushed them into making concrete decisions.

For the past few weeks we’ve had an incredible amount of valuation requests, which means people have made their minds up to sell. This is great if you’re looking to buy a property because you’ll have a larger choice to choose from!

Our challenge now is to find buyers and this is where, we believe, the virus has had its biggest impact. The government “chômage partiel” scheme has bailed a lot of people out in France but it has also made their pay slips look a lot less attractive to banks.

So the critical thing now is for future buyers to get back to work. Once they have three months of consistent pay slips they will be able to borrow the money they need to purchase. For international buyers, however, this isn’t necessarily a problem, so now that supply is on the up, it’s time to make your move.

What is for sure is that the Côte d’Azur remains one of the most beautiful places to live in the world. The team at Blue Sky Immobilier are here waiting to help you through the entire purchasing process.”

REF: 4015064
€348,400

REF: 3729446
€138,000

REF: 4019139 
€1,200,000

Alistair Lockhart, FrenchEntrée Property Director: “We’re delighted to be working with a fresh new agency in Nice and surrounding areas. We are seeing strong demand for the Côte d’Azur at all budget levels, and our buyers are keen to work with agencies with real emphasis of customer service and building a relationship, rather than feeling as if they are going through a revolving door. We’re looking forward to marketing Andrew and his team’s portfolio to our international audience.”

If you are looking to buy, live or invest in Nice or along the Côte d’Azur, please do not hesitate to get in touch!