A year in review and plans for 2024 : a word from the club’s founder

Club members, log in to see the full report.

The whole CIPG club team joins me in wishing you a happy new year in 2024 !

The year 2024 is shaping up to be a difficult one, with cost-of-living increases running amok. Lending rates, which have never been so high, are holding back most investors, even though this is precisely the best time to invest in property. Fewer buyers on the market means less competition and more room for negotiation for those who want to invest. In this difficult environment, it is very important to diversify and create additional sources of income.

On the personal side, I proudly boast a 100% occupancy rate for all my properties. On the professional side, I’m starting this new year with a number of uncertainties, but I’m remaining serene thanks to property, which provides me with an additional income that reassures me in the event of a setback. As you know, I’m still looking for a new building to develop my storage and vehicle wintering business.

My partner and I have a number of issues on the table, and I’m confident that we’ll be able to grow our non-trading property company in 2024. I’ll soon be explaining a new strategy aimed at boosting our income and I’ll be telling you about a new warehouse that we want to acquire. Negotiations will take place in 2024…

The CIPG club has reached its 10th anniversary, and we’re embarking on our 11^th year of existence with a number of projects and a wonderful, respectful and caring community. I’m now going to move on to the main topic and give you an overview of the year 2023, not forgetting our objectives and plans for 2024. If you’re a member of the club, log in to see the full article.

The volunteer team evolves

Lack of time is the major problem facing all associations. The excellent motivation of volunteers isn’t always enough. To get things moving, you need to put in place the kind of organisation and objectives that businesses are so fond of. The responsiveness of the members of the volunteer team is a very important issue for me, and I want every member to be able to get a quick response or the help they need.

Exchanges had become complicated within the volunteer team and the projects were not progressing very quickly. As several members of the team had less time to devote to the club, family and professional commitments not to mention their investments to manage. I decided to reduce the size of the team in order to refocus on the issues at hand and make our actions more responsive. I would like to extend my warmest thanks to the outgoing members of the team for their commitment and the time they have given to the club over the last few years !

We wouldn’t be here if you hadn’t contributed to the development of our community. Of course, they remain members of the club and enjoy all the benefits of Premium status ✨ it’s just a small thank you for the energy you’ve given to our club.

Here is a table summarising the organisation of the volunteer team :	Previous configuration	New organisation
In charge of writing and updating articles in the m’informer section	2 volunteers	1 volunteer
In charge of organising and moderating our discussion forum	3 volunteers	1 volunteer
Helping landlords manage their lettings on a day-to-day basis	3 volunteers	1 volunteer
Club administration and document templates	2 volunteers	1 volunteer
Interacts with the community via newsletters and manages our social networks	1 volunteer	1 volunteer
Guarantees the website’s operation. Designs and develops future modules	1 volunteer	1 volunteer
The moderator monitors all content published on the exchange platform	1 volunteer	1 volunteer
Total number of members in the volunteer team	13 volunteers	7 volunteers

The simplification is radical. The aim is to avoid the long discussions we had in the past about who does what, now there is just one person in charge of a task. It will also be easier to organise direct exchanges to move certain issues forward. We’re looking for one more volunteer member to develop the partnership and get even more discounts for our members !

2023 : exchanges, content and bugs

New logo and visuals

We’ve updated our logos and visuals. As time went by and improvements were made, we had lost consistency in our graphics. These are just visual details, but everything has its importance. Don’t hesitate to let us know if you have any aesthetic concerns about our site, any criticism is welcome and will help us to move forward and provide you with a quality platform.

New FAQ section

The help and frequently asked questions section has a new look to make it more intuitive and save you time. The aim remains the same: to help you find the answer to your question as quickly as possible, while taking as much of the workload off the volunteer team as possible. Video tutorials have also been added to clarify certain answers. As you can imagine, the FAQ section is set to expand even further in 2024 !

At least 2 articles per month

The faithful readers of our monthly newsletter are the first to witness this, and I have received nothing but positive feedback, saluting the work carried out throughout the year by the club’s volunteer team. The ambitious target of publishing or updating at least 2 articles a month has been successfully achieved. With more than 28 articles published and updated this year, we are offering our community and members high-quality, practical information. I can already tell you that we’re going to continue along the same lines in 2024.

As you know, I’m keen to bring you new content in our monthly newsletter. I’d also like to take this opportunity to thank all our readers for their loyalty and for the very pleasant messages we receive each time we send out our newsletter.

End of CIPG club subscription

I believe that the majority of members have encountered a problem with their membership not being automatically renewed. The banks have strengthened the security of recurring payments to better protect consumers, and that’s a very good thing. The introduction of a subscription simplified the renewal process for members who wanted to extend their membership. The time spent by the volunteer team on renewing subscriptions shows that this system does not work and complicates our internal operations.

All the members who wished to renew their club membership paid online again, I had no valid reason to keep this recurring payment system. Club membership now has to be renewed every year, so there’s no longer any commitment. This gives you the advantage of being able to change your status at will, and even every year if you wish !

There may still be a few subscriptions that are active, and we’ll see about deactivating them during the first quarter of the year. In any case, if a payment is made twice, we will refund you as soon as possible. As always, if you have any questions about membership, please don’t hesitate to contact us.

The €4 per month (€ 48 incl. VAT per year) subscription and € 6 per month (€ 72 incl. VAT per year) no-commitment packages have been replaced by the € 5 per month (€ 60 incl. VAT per year) member package. The Premium package ✨ at € 10 per month (€ 120 incl. VAT per year) with subscription disappears to make way for the unlimited access of the Premium package ✨ at € 12 per month (€ 144 incl. VAT per year).

A little bonus information, we only run 3 promotions a year for renewing your membership: the pumpkin festival for Halloween 🎃, Black Friday 💥 and the Christmas promotion 🎄 for latecomers. The Black Friday promotion was such a success that the 20% promo code limited to the first 80 was gone in a matter of hours… The end of the subscription caused a huge rush among members to take advantage of the exceptional offer, and there wasn’t enough for everyone, but that’s the way promotions work! It’s up to you to make a note of the date in your diary so that you’re ready for 2024.

Poor distribution of the monthly newsletter

We would like to thank those readers who have informed us that they are no longer receiving our news and apologise for any inconvenience caused. A technical problem deprived some of our subscribers of the newsletter for 2 months, but this bug has now been resolved. It’s important to remember that you shouldn’t hesitate to contact the club team if you no longer receive our monthly newsletter.

Site blocked : too many visitors

We had given visitors to the site the option of creating an account on the platform to see how it worked and read the free content, but in the end this solution took up too many resources on our server, and we had too many people online at the same time. All these multiple connections generated problems of slowness and availability which directly penalised the club members, I’m thinking in particular of online rental management which had become very slow.

The first step was to reinforce our hosting to welcome even more people, but the best decision was to limit access to the platform by only allowing club members to connect. We have put the free content directly on the main sections of the site : investing, landlords and sellers, so that we can look forward to 2024 with confidence.

Targets for 2024 : improvements, new tools and content

Content to enhance your experience

If you’ve been following our club for several years, you’ll know that we have an astronomical amount of content to share with the community. I’d like to thank all the members of the club who share so much feedback. We’re going to continue sharing in 2024, but we still need to sort out the various subjects and put them into a clear context. My objective remains the same: to provide you with verified, high-quality content.

The digital lease will evolve

The digital lease is the dematerialisation of your rental contracts. Club members who use it save an enormous amount of time, while respecting the environment with a paperless action. The principle is simple: you publish a free advert on our site and activate the online reservation by signing the contract online. When a tenant wants to rent your property, they use the CIPG club platform to :

• take a virtual tour of your rental site,
• pay the deposit and the first rent (the money goes directly into the landlord’s account; the club does not incur any charges),
• sign your personalised tenancy agreement online, the so-called digital lease,
• both the tenant and the landlord receive a certified copy of the lease and a copy of the landlord’s bank details,
• the keys are handed over and the rental period begins.

The volunteer team spends an enormous amount of time setting up a digital lease, and the development planned for early 2024 aims to automate the roll-out of a digital lease. The main objective is for the members of the volunteer team to focus on supporting club members rather than on the laborious task of creating contracts.

The toolbox is expanding

The members’ area will finally have a toolbox worthy of the name in 2024. You expect a simple, intuitive and effective toolbox. I wanted to bring together all the site’s functions in this module. When a member is lost or looking for something, the right reflex is the toolbox. The challenge was to enable you to find what you need quickly. We have set up a system of classification by headings and sub-headings to structure all the features of the platform. You will see the toolbox evolve over the first two months of the year.

Advertisements are improving

Dedicated classified ads are now an integral part of the platform. Some of the improvements will be completed by 2023, such as the ability to sort ads by date of publication or profitability displayed for properties for sale. Advertisers who are members of the club obtain a certification that highlights their ads for renting or selling a property. You can easily report any ad that is no longer up to date.

In 2024, we will be making improvements to the online booking system, which leads to the payment of a deposit and the signing of a rental contract, also known as a digital lease. Club members will see their listings gradually evolve during the second quarter of this year.

We have a recurring request from several members who would like to publish other types of property for rent. They want to use the online booking system. The year 2024 is the right one, and you’ll be able to publish ads to rent: furnished accommodation, flats and seasonal rentals. I would like our advertising site to remain dedicated to car parks, garages and warehouses, but I understand the interest and advantage of using our automated system to optimise your rentals and save time.

I don’t know whether we’ll be able to achieve this improvement in 2024, but I’m keeping in mind the request to post ads in English for our non-French resident members.

New press review

You like the press review, so we’re going to make it even better in 2024. A number of members have come up with some very interesting ideas for making this section even more important, by giving you even more information about the real estate niche. That’s all for now, but trust us, we’ve got something fun in the pipeline.

Conclusion

Thank you, club members, supporters and loyal readers : it’s thanks to you that our club is growing every day ! Many of you talk about and recommend our site to others; it’s great to see new members joining the club thanks to your recommendations. If you wish, you can leave us a review or share your experience with our club by clicking here. You can also contact our team with your ideas for improvements.

Even if 2024 looks set to be a tough year, I’m sure we’ll have some good times and some great projects. You can be proud that our community is a place for sharing, helping and exchanging, where respect and kindness reign supreme. This club would be nothing without you, so THANK YOU once again.