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Emailing lanlords in paris advice from http://www.theparisienexpat.com
Many of you have written to us messages asking for advice on how to contact and improve your chances of getting an apartment in Paris, unfortunately we cannot reply to everyone individually so please use this post as our response and advice. Firstly you must consider: Is it better to email a response to the advertisement or telephone directly? Each obviously has its own advantage. We will cover the first telephone call over the next few days. For now, we will look into ‘the first email’ you send. Just like when you are sending your cover letter to a prospective employer, this could be the ‘make or break’ for you. Please bear in mind, each landlord will be receiving volumes of emails from potential tenants. It is essential that you address the person correctly, if they have provided their name in the ad, please make sure you spell it exactly as they provided, how many times have you received an email and seen your name miss-pelt? Without reading on, what’s your first thought? Clumsy writer? Indifferent author? The salutation is equally important; again if the name is different/unusual to your and you are unsure if they are male or female, do a quick Google search! It will only take a few minutes to find out. Also if the poster has written in French, use French salutations (Mme, M.), (if it’s in English as most will be on this blog) (Mrs or Mr **surname***) is the norm. If the poster has omitted his or her name, simply address the email as follows; Dear Sir/Madam. When it comes to the body of your text, you need to keep it short but precise, this is your opportunity to make an impression and show the landlord you have the desired characteristics. Every landlord is looking for a certain type of person, whether it be a young student or an independent professional, there certain exercises you can do to improve your changes. The first exercise has been covered in a previous post . It is to your advantage to take the advice previously posted. For example, If you find your landlord (or poster’s) profile on Facebook, you will have a wealth of information about them, not only their essential details, but also their likes and dislikes. Again, we are not advocating lies here, but simply including information that is relevant to both parties. Consider, you find your landlord’s facebook/twitter or another social networking profile, (we will use face book for this example), look at the groups that person is a members of. If he/she is a member of “I love scrabble” , “I visited USA”, or “ I studied in Vietnam” group (you understand our point), and you have a connecting point. This will be essential in your email. 
After studying in Vietnam for 2 years I moved to Paris last month……………. (if true). We guarantee! The reader’s eyes and memory will register, he/she will be not only by intrigued you but also by their OWN association with that particular subject. This psychological technique is even more powerful on a telephone call and during your apartment visit, as this will trigger a conversation which should be unique to the two of you, we will of cover this scenarios at a later date. It is essential that the main body of your email covers your strengths; you must tailor this according to your findings. Generally we know what our own strengths are. Landlords are specifically looking for dependable people, keywords and indicators of dependable people include: Full time employment (CDI), job position (if favorable) Full time student, study course (also what are you working towards in future, a masters, a PhD), duration in Paris, Family person, Spouse, Children, Salary, Profession. Although you may be studying a bachelor’s degree at the moment, we recommend you include that you are studying towards a Masters degree. If you are studying a Masters degree, say you are working towards a Phd. this expanded detail shows your long term plans, your ambition and sensible attitude. Note. We do not consider this a lie! For many of you students it’s very reasonable to suggest you will continue you’re studies. Furthermore, for those of you studying, if you are at an established and recognizable institution, include the name in your email; again this emphasizes your strengths. The above points are applicable to employees, the self employed etc, just make sure you expand and emphasize your strengths. To finish off your email, end it in a clean and professional manner and include all relevant contact details. Note. If you send an email, 99% of the time you will get a email response instead of a telephone call, however, it’s good for presentation to give the recipient various contact methods. We’ve received many email examples form people to check over, We provide a guideline standard email below, you should tailor this to your own characteristics and strengths. Applying what we mentioned today, a good email would be.
Dear Mr Hoffman.
I have seen you’re rental advertisement on www.expatfrance.wordpress.com and I’m interested to know a little more, but firstly, let me tell you a bit about myself.
I am a Brazilian Student (28 years of age) who has recently returned from Vietnam where I studied my Bachelors degree in Computer Science. I have been in Paris 3 months and am currently looking for accommodation as I’m studying a master’s degree, working towards my PhD at La Sorbonne (5). I am looking for long term accommodation and would be grateful for any photos and details you have regarding this apartment.
If you have any questions about me, feel free to ask.
Kind Regards
Maria Reyes
We trust this post is of use to you, we do however recommend the email response is done after an initial telephone call in what we call the ‘research call’. We will explain why in a future post. Good luck!
No Spam
Adult 
Gambling
Unfinished
Deception
Plagiarism
Not English
