Hope

After spending another day in Paris, Jeff not only came home without keys to an apartment for us, but he came home with zero promising prospects. Yesterday was his third day in Paris searching the city for an apartment. He is having a hard time getting people to call him back and respond to his emails, mainly because he is a foreigner, he doesn’t speak the language, and he’s trying to get an apartment for a family of 6 (we’ve had many turn us away once we told them how many children we have). It’s not that the French aren’t willing to rent to an American (although the 4 kids thing is a tough hurdle...I'm mean seriously, I can't imagine why they wouldn't want 4 kids under 10 years old in their apartment!), it’s just that it’s much easier to rent to French speakers, and because Paris apartments are in such high demand, they can turn us down and find another willing renter within hours. As you can imagine, last night I was feeling a bit stressed!

Jeff spent today on email and Skype again contacting everyone he could to find an apartment, and for the first time, we feel like we may have some options! We had 3-4 write us back and request a rendezvous (appointment) to see the apartment, but the most promising one was an email we received about a previously unavailable apartment.

Jeff found this apartment on LeBonCoin.fr last Thursday during his first trip into the city. LeBonCoin.fr is a really cool website. It is in French, but Google Chrome does a pretty good job translating the pages. We like this site because apartments are listed by owners (meaning, no agency fees). This is huge because agency fees can be as much as a full months rent or more! Jeff responded to the listing on Thursday and didn’t hear back. He called on it later that day and the lady spoke very little English, but enough to say that the apartment is likely already taken. However, he liked the lady he spoke with, and for some reason felt good about the apartment. It was a bit out of our price range, but with zero agency fees we thought we could justify it. We watched it over the weekend, and continued to discuss it. On Sunday, Jeff felt impressed to get one of his friends (a guy graduating from HEC this semester who speaks very good French) to call the owner and speak to her. Jeff spoke to his friend on Monday morning, who said he’d call after class. Jeff then wrote the owner another email telling her that we’re still interested in her apartment.

Here’s where the story gets good. Jeff received an email midday from the owner saying the following:

Good morning Mr,

The appartment is not available, the rent is finish, I'm very sorry

Bie

Then about an hour later Jeff received a phone call from his friend telling him that he had a good conversation with the owner and that she would call him back soon to discuss. Shortly thereafter, Jeff received this email from the same lady:

Good morning,

You have thing i don't know what i want!!!

I give RV for you and your family to-day the 06 april to 9h the morning to the apartment

OK, i give your response thank you

Cordialement

G.Savouret

Not sure what all of that meant, but we got the part about meeting her tomorrow morning to see the apartment! For some reason we feel good about this one. Fingers crossed!!