Finding the plot

From searching to finding

The plot Chalet Miage stands on never sat in a window with a price sticker on it. It came to us because, after years of trying, we’d made ourselves easy to think of.

Saint-Gervais-les-Bains has no shortage of dream-brokers. The immobilier (estate agent) windows along the streets are made for the kind of pavement-gazing we’d done for years: visitors peering at photographs of chalets they may never buy. We were those visitors for a long time.

Most of the agents we met were friendly and happy to show us plots and chalets at short notice. Some spoke perfect English. Others less so, which was good for our French. But we learned quickly that you have to drive the process yourself.

Be the one who follows up

Agents in a resort town see a lot of dreamers pass through. Understandably, they put their energy into the buyers who are clearly serious and clearly there.

Don’t expect anyone to chase you once you’ve gone home. On every trip we made a point of going back in, asking what was new, and staying on their radar. Presence is half the battle.

The art of compromise

No plot in Saint-Gervais ticks every box. Decide early which of these matter most to you:

• Which side of the valley? It decides when you get the sun, morning or evening.
• High up or low down? Higher means views and a stiff walk to town (do you have the legs for it?). Lower means a gentle stroll.
• Mont Blanc or the shops? A view of the summit itself, or a short walk to town. You rarely get both.
• How near a ski bus? The ski buses are free, but not every route runs all year. And most visitors to Saint-Gervais bring a car anyway.
• Flat or sloping? Prepare to spend serious money on groundworks if you have to dig into the hillside.
• Ski-in, ski-out? Possible on paper, but most chalets sit lower down, where snow cover is patchier and far from guaranteed.

Where we landed: lower down rather than high up… but not so low as to be in the valley, a view of the Dômes de Miage, a bakery about twenty minutes’ walk away, and a plot where the digging had already been done. We gave up ski-in, ski-out; the reality is that snow on the return slope back to the town is never guaranteed and in our experience more a surprise than a certainty. You’ll want a car to reach the lifts, but they are only a 6 minute drive away and there’s loads of parking.

The tools we actually used

A few practical notes on where we looked:

• SeLoger. We bookmarked it, added the app, and checked it constantly.
• Agents’ own websites. Well worth going direct, because not everything makes it onto the big portals.
• Leboncoin. France’s enormous classifieds site, where building land turns up surprisingly often. Always worth a look.
• Overseas portals (Rightmove, Zoopla and similar). We’d gently steer you away. For the French Alps they’re mostly eye candy, and listings tend to linger long after the chalet has sold.

The agent who found our plot

One name worth knowing: Andrew Morgan at Leggett. He doesn’t have a shopfront in town (he advertises all over it instead), but he’s been in Saint-Gervais for years and knows the local market inside out.

On every visit we’d sound him out and keep in touch. He’d show us properties and plots that hadn’t yet come to market. In the end, it was through Andrew that we found the plot Chalet Miage now stands on.

What we’d tell anyone looking

If we were starting again, this is the short version of what worked:

• Be present, and come back often. The right plot rarely turns up in a tidy online search.
• Make yourself a known, serious buyer to the people who hear about land first.
• Use SeLoger and the agents’ own sites, and check Leboncoin for bare plots.
• Don’t put much faith in the overseas portals.
• Build a real relationship with a well-connected local agent, and be ready to move quickly when something right appears.