Maxwell Baynes is the only agency you should consider when buying and selling in the Bordeaux region of France. I know this because I worked with four local agencies when trying to sell my chateau. I wish I had just signed an exclusivity agreement with Maxwell-Baynes from the start. I couldn’t have been more pleased with the service and attention to detail that they offered. Perhaps the most valuable service they provide is an unending commitment to problem solve and find solutions. Just what you need when negotiating deals for high value properties.

Our search for, and eventual purchase of, a beautiful house in the Dordogne was thanks in large part to the exceptional service we received from Kirsten Pollard of Maxwell-Baynes Real Estate. My first contact with Kirsten was on the phone, having searched the agency website from the UK and telephoned to select some properties for viewing. She was extremely helpful from the start - very quick to understand the parameters of what we were looking for and very knowledgeable about the area we were looking in. She set up appointments in readiness for our trip and at every stage she went the extra mile – helping arrange accommodation for us for the couple of days we would be there and answering my (numerous!) emailed and telephone queries requesting exact information about the properties. Once we were in the Dordogne we were very impressed by her care and attention – and her astute assessment of which properties we should go and view beyond our initial selection. She was endlessly patient with us, discussing with us the pros and cons of the properties we saw and encouraged us to see a property that was ultimately our dream house, but which we might not have considered without her insight into how well it met everything on our wish list and then her help in recommending people, such as a company to put the swimming pool in. What was also impressive was the service did not stop with securing the sale – she continued to help us with meetings with the lawyer, helping translate for us, and in ensuring we understood everything that was going on. Buying a property abroad can seem quite intimidating and it was extremely reassuring to have her calm and ready assistance at every stage. All in all we would highly recommend Kirsten and the agency. She made the whole experience of choosing and buying our house very easy!

Thank you so much for all your help and advice. You truly offer an outstanding service which puts all other agents we have come across to shame. We wish you the best and look forward to dealing again in the future. Many thanks.

We have known Michael Baynes and Karin Maxwell for over ten years now. We have purchased two properties and sold one through their firm and with each had a most professional and agreeable experience. The words trustworthy and ethical come to mind when we think back at these real estate transactions. Michael... has been the standout broker in all of our years of buying and selling properties (approximately 20 properties over 25 years = at least 15 different agents). Michael has always worked tirelessly to make sure we are happy with every step of the process and is excellent at evaluating each properties’ potential. He is equally wonderful at being creative with renovation and financing options. Michael also has an abundance of resources for construction projects, vintners, architects, lawyers, bankers, etc. It was also very helpful to have been able to work with the firm’s English speaking notaire and their in-house insurance broker. Being Americans, we have deeply appreciated the level of customer service that Maxwell-Baynes provided and were especially impressed how they rendered the buying and selling process seamless from beginning to end. It is with great pleasure that we highly recommend the Maxwell-Baynes team to anyone buying or selling a property.

We bought a beautiful large chateau/house with Kirsten Pollard back in June of this year. The point of my email is to say how amazing Kirsten was, she was holding our hand throughout the whole process. We were moving from Ireland, giving up jobs so it was a big deal. I was actually an estate agent in Ireland so I had some idea of the process. Kirsten gave us so much time and was always contactable and always so professional at the same time as being so kind and acting like our friend. There were a few hairy moments when matters were very stressful and emotional and even in difficult situations Kirsten was not afraid to deal with us directly …she listened to us and advised us. What I liked about her is that she also took our advice and tried a few tactics to get the owner to see us as the ideal purchasers. Even after we had moved in, Kirsten was so helpful with the transition. We bought in the same village as Kirsten lives and I know that Kirsten will become a friend of ours, we are actually going for dinner this Saturday. When we sell, which will probably be 8-10 years we will sell using Maxwell-Baynes Real Estate, that’s for sure. I don’t usually write to owners of companies because I believe if someone does a good job….that’s part of their job, its expected. But Kirsten went the extra mile, she works so hard and is so dedicated and her wonderful personality helps too!

Kirsten Pollard is by far the most professional agent immobilier that we have ever dealt with in France! In 2019, we wanted to sell our large house in southwest France (in the 1 to 2 million euros price bracket), and decided to appoint three agences immobilières. Kirsten Pollard, from Maxwell-Baynes Real Estate, part of the Christie’s International Real Estate, by far outshone the other two agencies during the whole process. Her advice on pitching the asking price for our property was exceptionally well-informed, soundly based on the current market trends, actual data and results that she herself had achieved for similar properties on the market in the region, together with a consideration of our desire to achieve the highest price possible for our house sale, which of course is what everyone wants. We can never understand the apparent apathy of some estate agents in France, but as soon as we issued instruction, Kirsten was exceptionally pleasant to deal with and super-efficient. She was the first agent to visit the property, the first to sign the sales mandate, the first to prepare the details for the website, and with good photographs taken by her at the property and some of our own ‘stock’ photos, the online advert immediately drew significant attention and she was the first to bring viewers to the house. With additional behind the scenes work, matching her portfolio of existing buyers to our newly available property, viewings followed very quickly, were well organised, and that all-important feedback was duly reported. Potential buyers were serious, no time-wasters, and we had no qualms leaving the viewings in the capable hands of Kirsten. Being marketed in the middle of summer when any house is in its full glory, Kirsten was also mindful of our property being occupied by paying guests and this was very much considered during visits. Throughout the negotiation process once an offer had been made, Kirsten was always available on the phone to both parties, relaying conversations without any delay between ourselves and our buyers honestly and accurately. We always felt she was acting in our best interests, and she helped us to stay calm and objective during this emotional period. Having lived in France for 16 years, we had a fairly good understanding of the process and the language, but Kirsten was on hand at every point of the negotiations and paperwork, accompanying us to meetings with our notaire when necessary and assisting us through all the inevitable bureaucracy. On the other side of the coin, once our house was sold, we then went on to buy a new house in France in an area which sadly Kirsten does not cover. It has also been very interesting to compare the agents that we have dealt with during the buying process with Kirsten, and with her as our benchmark, we can honestly say that all the other agents fell well short in virtually every aspect of this experience.

My wife and I had experienced the charm and beauty of St Emilion a few years ago having visited from our home in the US to celebrate a friend’s wedding. We loved St Emilion and the surrounding area so much that it became a dream to purchase a property there at some day. Having been recommended by my US broker, I first made contact with Michael Baynes in 2018; we held a series of conference calls and exchanged a number of emails as we tried to gather information about the market and the properties for sale in the Bordeaux region of South West France. Michael has spent much of his career on the client side of the real estate industry as a real estate investor and developer, so speaking to him as our agent, we felt that he identified with us well and made us comfortable from the outset. With a very full business and family schedule, rarely do we have time to follow up and write a testimony, however, we were so impressed with the advice we were given and the way that we were guided through the purchase process that we feel compelled to endorse Michael and his team. Some of the things that we particularly appreciated included: Michael’s in depth command of his market, attention to detail, a solution oriented leadership style that was both confident and humble but never abrasive in getting things done; his willingness to put our interests first advising us against decisions that may have benefited him more, his patience and above all his professionalism in every aspect of what we experienced. For example, we fell in love with the concept of looking at properties with a “hobby vineyard”, yet after understanding our needs Michael advised us to pick the property we loved and then take time to learn about the pros of cons of managing vines. We are grateful that at the time we took his advice – To his credit, vines/land can be acquired easily in the secondary market. The bottom line is that we totally trusted Michael to look after everything correctly allowing us to relax and enjoy what could have been a stressful experience in a foreign country. I cannot emphasize this point enough as the complexities of paperwork, banking, etc. were no small task but Michael and his team organized and executed everything flawlessly. Looking back to those early conversations with Michael as we told him our criteria for a purchase, in fact, we really did not know what we wanted, we just knew that we liked the area. Michael carefully qualified us and understood what we needed better than we did ourselves. Putting our trust in him to guide us, he led us to something we never would have imagined at the outset and today, we cannot exaggerate enough how much we love the chateau that we purchased through Maxwell-Baynes Real Estate. We consider Michael a friend and perhaps the greatest testimony of all, is that we will be making a second and more significant purchase through Michael later this year.