Rhone Alps, Haute-Savoie, Les Houches, France

Alpine Property was formed in 1999 to address the need for an estate agency serving International property buyers in the Alps. It was centered around the principle that the complex and often daunting process of buying property abroad is best served by professional, local advice in your own language.

In its infancy, Alpine Property concentrated on properties in the Morzine and Les Gets area, finding foreign clients for the local Estate Agents in the area. It soon became clear that there was a pressing need for a full-service estate agency specifically catering for foreign buyers - and so it was that Alpine Property expanded its service to become a one-stop-shop offering its own properties and accompanying clients along the entire property buying process. In order to provide this service in France, Estate Agents must hold a Carte Professionelle to show that they are properly qualified, licensed and insured. Renewed annually, the Carte Professionelle requires agents to demonstrate their professional ability, be fluent in French and to have taken out professional indemnity insurance. These rigorous demands and a lengthy bureaucratic process mean that very often foreign Estate Agents operating in France do not have this all-important card, and therefore 'pass you on' to local Estate Agents to complete the formalities of the sale once you have verbally agreed to buy. This often leads to confusion and errors in this important final stage.

This change coincided with an expansion in both scale and service - Alpine Property began to offer properties across the whole of the Haute Savoie region and invested heavily in its unique and innovative website to provide the most comprehensive buying and selling service available in the French Alps.