Fifteen years after a lifestyle move to Brittany, expat couple the O’Gradys are running a property management firm with a
growing network across France. And right now, they’re pretty busy! You never know, you might be tempted to join their team…
Summer 2021 is shaping up to be busier than expected for Pete and Sue O’Grady, whose property management firm
and its network of agents have seen an uplift in rental bookings from French and European holidaymakers. Since the
first lockdown in March 2020, new bookings for rental accommodation, or gîtes, by British holidaymakers have ceased completely and any existing reservations pretty much cancelled. Fortunately for the O’Gradys, much of the gap left by
the UK market has been filled by holidaymakers closer to home.
“In one perverse sense, Covid has actually been good for us,” said Pete told BricksAbroad in June 2021. “Despite all British bookings being cancelled, all our properties were fully occupied in July and August last year and will be this year. This is thanks to French and mainly Dutch holidaymakers, who are all taking staycations within mainland Europe. Even this late
in the year we’re picking up bookings for new French clients. Just last week a local lady asked us to start renting her property from 1st July. That was in mid-June and within 24 hours of appointing us we’d got her two bookings!”
In more typical non-Covid times, bookings through their firm Prestige Property Services are split 50/50 between mainland Europeans, predominantly French, and English-speaking nations, predominantly British with some Americans, Australians and Canadians. A rebound in bookings from the UK is inevitable once travel restrictions are eased, but Pete also expects a surge in enquiries from Brits looking to buy and rent out a holiday home, and in some cases join his firm’s network.
Growing the network
The O’Gradys started Prestige Property Services
six years ago and today run it from their office in medieval Josselin, a designated ‘petite cité de caractère’ with a château in Brittany’s Morbihan department. They live 200 metres down the road.
Prestige Property Services and its associated agents are set up to offer two types of service. First is the general maintenance of properties for second homeowners, so key-holding and taking care of the house and everything with it, including the garden and pool. Second is managing a holiday home for rentals, handling everything from bookings and changeovers to promoting the property, which includes advertising on all mainstream portals such as AirBnB, Vrbo and TripAdvisor. Clients are charged fixed fees for the different aspects of general maintenance, while charges for rentals are commission based. They will also offer guidance to house-hunters who want independent advice about a property and its rentability.
These days the O’Gradys spend most of their time managing their network and running the rental portals. Unlike more franchise-based models, each of their 15 agents spread around France is self-employed and operates independently, but
at the same time they retain access to the firm’s expertise, its database of service providers and its resources for rentals.
“New agents, or associates, pay a joining fee, which includes six months of mentoring by us, and after that it’s €60/month, to cover our ongoing support,” said Pete. “Unlike typical franchise agreements, there is no ongoing obligation or contract, leaving agents to leave the network – and rejoin again, if they so wish.
“Currently, we have agents in Brittany, Normandy, Aquitaine, Limousine and Languedoc-Roussillon. Some offer just the property maintenance side of things, while others just do rentals for their clients. It just depends on the individual.”
Typical people who join Prestige Property Services are those who arrive from the UK keen to earn a living but not sure how. Most don’t realise that 90 per cent of UK expats wishing to work have little choice but to be self-employed, due to not speaking French well enough and/or not having transferrable skills.
From Leamington to Brittany
Property maintenance was a route Pete and Sue chose when they arrived in France. They always knew they wouldn’t sit
still for long when in 2006 they semi-retired and moved across the Channel. Hitting their fifties, the couple had become disillusioned with their busy working lives and relocating to their holiday home near Pontivy in Brittany, which they had bought a few years earlier, made complete sense.
“Sue was a nurse and had reached a desk-based managerial level, which she didn’t enjoy, while I was a consultant working for big finance firms but without much of a life outside of work,” recounted Pete. “We’d both built up healthy pensions so
we decided it was the ideal time to swap Leamington Spa where we were living for Brittany, where we had a home near Pontivy. But we needed something to give us mental stimulation still.”
So, fresh off the ferry, the couple found roles with
a property management company that offered franchise opportunities to expats. “While working for them, we were also offered the chance of helping to run a château and its five-star campsite in Normandy,” continued Pete.
“Actually, the main reason for doing that was to improve our French. So we did the campsite for about three seasons. Meanwhile, we were starting to feel that disenchanted with the maintenance franchise and the way they operated.” Cue the birth of Prestige Property Services.
New home in Josselin
In 2015 the couple made the decision to move back to Brittany, deciding they preferred it to Normandy, and launch their own take on a property maintenance firm. This meant they also needed to go shopping for a new home, having sold their Pontivy property.
“We realised that your requirements when choosing a property for living as opposed to holidays are different,” said Pete. “When picking our new home we knew we wanted to be in a town rather than the countryside. And we didn’t want acres
of land. So, for the past five years home has been our small terraced townhouse with a postage stamp garden in Josselin.
We travel a lot for work, visiting agents around the country, doing property shows and taking weekends away, so this type
of low maintenance property works really well for us.”
And it would appear life is set to get busier for Pete and Sue, with their business on a northward trajectory. “Right now, we’re ready to take on another dozen agents and add around 100 more properties,” said Pete. “We’re starting to grow the network outside France and have taken on associates in Portugal, Cyprus and Italy!”
