The 'rent b4 you buy' argument - some more views.

[Fritz]

Some random thoughts on the ‘rent before you buy’ in France argument. I know a couple who did, for a year, and ended up with a run-down gite business in the grotty part of a rather dismal town. So maybe it isn’t the best thing to do, on reflection, because:

 

1)       You’re not totally committed, so you don’t try hard enough to overcome problems and see the end of the let as a good excuse to give up and go back to Blighty.

2)       Even with letting you still have to go through the business of finding and buying a property. Letting itself does not give you the experience of buying, renovating and maintaining. You just have to do it.

3)       It takes (IMHO) between 3 to 5 years to become competent at the language - if you’re starting from scratch. Even so there’s no magical osmotic process involved; you still have to do the lessons, find teachers, courses and use it (with the locals, naturally). Letting for a year is simply not long enough to get to grips with the language and see if you like it.

4)       Culturally it takes even longer to understand who and what the French are. A year is way too short and so you may leave with a jaundiced view after a let, when staying a few years longer (after buying) may just reveal a few glimpses as to why the French are French and confirm your choice as the right one.

5)       Financially, of course, you lose a years price inflation and end up paying more for your property.

 

 

Just my wayward views, of course. If you’re fluent in French already, have a decent job (if you need one) then clearly the renting route is a probably sufficient to find out if you like the area. But if you have a good job and know the language you’ll find out in a two week holiday anyway.   

[Teamedup]

No way would I have even considered selling up in the UK without testing the waters here first.

 

No way we would have come without steady decent employment either.

 

 

We rented for getting on for 2 and a half years and started looking for land to build on after about a year. And we did have a great adventure, what fun trying to buy a place in France, half finished it was, and at least twice the price of UK prices.

 

 

 

I do not believe that a holiday is enough though even for a french speaker. There is more to France than just the language. Even with a job, the way the job market works here, it is really so different to the UK that I still think that testing it out is a good idea.

[Hegs]

I would agree with TU, it makes more sense to rent in principle.

I also think the "buy because then you're more committed" is a very dumb argument. Presumably if you follow that logic you would prefer to be tied into your ADSL provider for 20 years rather than one?

>5) Financially, of course, you lose a years price inflation and end up paying more for your property.

Unless prices go down, of course, in which case you gain.

However, the good reasons for buying you forgot, is that in a lot of France the rentals market in France can be quite grotty and buying might be the only option to get a reasonable property, especially if your needs aren't standard.

[Kayjay<P> <P><P>"Passer sa vie à lutter contre la connerie est le meilleur procédé pour mourir dépuisement."<P>]

"Letting for a year is simply not long enough to get to grips with the language and see if you like it."

I'm not quite sure what you meant by "see if you like it",  do you mean like the language?  In any event, I can't see why a year isn't long enough to build up a reasonable grasp of almost any language when you are committed to doing it and actually living there.

Of course, if one belongs to the school of "SkyTV/where can I get fish and chips/buy marmite/find Samuel Smith's/increase my circle of British friends/speak English slowly and loudly to the natives" then it might well be more of an uphill struggle....

I've seen the same syndrome in Greece, also, with people who've been there for 50 years and still can't understand the TV news - I imagine it's similar in Spain etc.

And how come the Dutch seem to speak every language known to man?   (Apart from, "because nobody speaks theirs"!) 

[Pangur]

I really don't understand your argument Fritz.  So you should dive in and buy before you get a chance to realise it's not for you, as you'll be able to get out of it too easily if you're renting?  Surely it is better to rent for a few years and leave if it is not for you, rather than have to sell up and find a new house back in England?

Personally I don't understand how people can plough lots of money into buying a permanent residence over here without living - not holidaying - in the area first. We are renting and househunting at the moment.  We have plenty of time to view a wide range of houses, in different areas and decide on what it is we want.  And, we don't have to rely on one or two agents, we're free to make appointments all over the place.  We've seen the winter here and the summer and believe me, the weather can make a big difference on the area in which you want to buy. 

Going throught the househunting process, it amazes me that people expect to buy while on holiday and without speaking any French.  Obviously it can work, based on the number of people on here that seem to have done it, but it is certainly not a risk I would be willing to take.

 

[Viv]

We decided not to rent,but to buy whilst we still had UK employment simply because we were under the impression that it is notoriously hard to get a French mortgage here. I don't know if that's a myth or not. It worked for us, luckily, but I can see the logic in renting first.

[Alan]

I think there are for and against like in most things. My mother and father in law who have lived in France for 40 years now really thought it would be best for us to rent before moving, of course my wife has lived here for 30 years also, but they thought for me I would find it much harder to adapt to the French way of life. But I had no intention of working for a company in France and therefore thought I would go stir crazy staying at home in a rent house that would not need any work doing to it waiting for my wife to come home from work each day and taking the kids to school.

 

As it happened in the end we ended up renting for 5 months while the sale of the house went through, think if I had stay another month then I would have been on the first boat back. It might have been different if it had been me working and the wife was staying at home then I think it would have been ok.

 

Don’t get me wrong I think you have to do the research first, but long term renting for me would not have worked at all.

[Russethouse]

>>I know a couple who did, for a year, and ended up with a run-down gite business in the grotty part of a rather dismal town<<<

I think I have missed something - what bearing did renting have to this scenario.

Everyones situation is different but if you sell in the UK and buy in France are you potentially out of two lots of estate agents fees just for starters ? And slow though it maybe, how easy is it to get back into the housing market in the Uk if you want to come back?

[wisteria<P><IMG src="http:forums.livingfrance.comimagesline.gif"><BR>wisteria<P><P><a target=_blank href="http:www.frenchaccommodation.co.uk">www.frenchaccommodation.co.uk<A><P><P> <P>]

Just from our own experience, had we rented first, we would have packed up when the going got VERY tough.Nearly 6 years later we are still here and there are still tough times occasionaly (but these days nothing to do with being in France just teenage stuff. lol) but does feel like home now.

wisteria

[Fritz]

'I also think the "buy because then you're more committed" is a very dumb argument. Presumably if you follow that logic you would prefer to be tied into your ADSL provider for 20 years rather than one?'

In spite of my opinion being just that, I apologise for being dumb. Mercifully I understand that such an affliction can be remedied by study and continuing self-improvement. I shall therefore re-engage with those forum members who are clearly more erudite, knowledgeable and obviously smarter than me, when I have achieved the requisite level of intellectual attainment.

[Teamedup]

Fritz this is a good and interesting thread, so don't throw a wobbler, it isn't necessary.

You could also ask so many more questions too.

Like for the younger members, ie not retiring here, 'move before having employment' argument.

AND if the move is planned, for everyone, 'move before you have learnt some french' argument.

And ofcourse ' buying when you haven't a clue as to what the place is really like' argument.

 

Everyone I know of, foreigners who come here, come for specific jobs. They come and rent. Sometimes they never buy. In spite of us coming more or less from one day to the next and having no french when we got here, it took us a year of city living to get a feel for the place how France works and how different it all was and also an idea as to where we would like to live.It was then we started looking for some land.

I say this region is expensive, but there are places where it is far less expensive. You have to ask yourself why and I  found they were cheaper for a good reason. They are dead end places, with one bus a week and odd all there. The locals have never left, with all that implies, duelling banjos etc etc. And to add to the that they sometimes have worse weather than the rest of us too. I actually checked on meteo france and it was true, not by much but different never the less.

As I said all the foreigners and french people I know who have  moved into the region end up renting first. I don't know anyone who said, yup, got the job I'll just go and buy.  How can anyone do that. Duh, it's cheap, big and boat loads of land, duh must be good, coz no one else wants it. Hmmm not quite for me, or anyone I know really.

 

So that is us, we wouldn't have come here without a good job. We wouldn't have sold up in the UK without being sure that it was going to be the right thing for us. We almost moved to the Canaries when the kids were small as a job came up there. Only we went on holiday and missed the thing that went from an internal post that was advertised and we had got hold of inadvertently, to being  a publicly advertised post and the cut off date. We were always up for a further adventure, but always on our own terms and eyes wide open.

 

And to what hegs said about less than nice appts. Ah we did that, the first was only OK the second worse. Was it cheap, I should coco 1600 euros a month in 1981 and we just couldn't bring ourselves to fork out £200 a month then to get somewhere that should have been pleasanter. But it was the adventure we were on and that was how french people lived after all. A real taste of France, the unusual wall paper and all.

 

 

[andyh4]

Well we have just leapt in and bought - allbeit in a place we have know well from holidays (but only holidays) and a bit of research - so yes we did know about the 2m of snow in the winter.

BUT (and I think it is a big one) we had been ex-pats for 8 years.  We understand that our house is not a bit of Britain in the sun.  We understand that there are major cultural differences (although we maybe don't understand all of them individually and maybe never will).  We understand bureaucracy, and even sometime why its there.  We understand the importance of speaking French proficiently (even though we cannot yet) - and this was in part of our own making since we chose quite deliberately an area less frequented by the British.  But that was in part to force us to become more proficient.

 

In these matters I do not think there is a one size fits all solution about how to go about moving to France, but I do think this discussion is very valuable in throwing up some of the issues that people should consider.  Unfortunately reading some posts on some boards you get the impression that some would be Francophiles have just finished watching "A second home in the Sunnier bits of France" on the box and have decided there and then to give it a go.  No thought given to this at all.  Indeed probably less than if the program had seduced them to moving to Cornwall ("Oh it's a long way from london how will the children get down to visit us for Christmas?").

 

At least people reading this will realise that there are issues.

[letrangere]

Like Pangur, I find it very strange that people - especially those on an already tight budget, with a family, no local language skills and no job - suddenly sell up in the UK and move to anywhere, let alone the depths of rural France.  It just doesn't add up.  It's going to be nigh on impossible to find work, and not much easier to find a French teacher or affordable classes to learn the language.  So if you do fall into this category, it's even crazier to take on the commitment of buying your own home.  For when, as is quite likely, you decide the French experience isn't for you, your options are so limited for it's not even as if you can bail out quickly.  Those who've purchased in the last few years during the craze to move to France probably don't realise how long it normally takes to sell a house, and we're already seeing a return to places being on the market for 6-12 months or longer.

Also, how many of us have raced around in our limited vacation trying to view as many houses as possible in the short time available?  Unless we're very fortunate, we've every chance of buying something that later turns out to be quite unsuitable and not at all what or where we really wanted.  Buying a house is the biggest purchase any of us ever makes, so surely it's better to take our time over it? 

I agree with Andy though that those who have already lived abroad for a reasonable period of time probably have a better chance of making a success of things.  If nothing else they'll approach the move with a confident, positive attitude knowing that they've survived in worse places.

M

[Viv]

This topic could almost be linked with the 'selling up and going back one'.

Whilst I agree that many people do move to France through work, or with enough money and business knowledge to set up a gite or whatever straightaway. There are inevitably people who come here to 'escape' whatever in the UK or with a pioneer spirit and no amount of well meaning advice etc will deter them.  

I think that the individuals mental attitude of ' I'm not going to fail' (whether misplaced or not) is perhaps the key factor in why some choose to buy and others are more cautious and choose to rent. Please don't take this as any slur on either type and I'm sorry if i've gone off the point!

[letrangere]

With the possible exception of persecution, you never really escape anything by moving abroad, it's the worst reason on earth to leave.  But I like the introduction of this "pioneer spirit" idea, that's really got me thinking.  Are there parallels between Brits moving to France today and those who decided to start a new life in Australia or America centuries ago?  Many of them were certainly escaping and the first few generations of settlers had an extremely tough time.  Interesting idea, something to mull over.  M

[Viv]

I don't want to get into a political debate, but clearly some people do leave because they don't want to live in the UK anymore for whatever reason. 

It may be the worst reason, but its a reason none the less

I think people many people who do come here do become very enterprising- like pioneers, they often have to to get by.

[Owens88]

Just from reading various threads in this forum I can see that there is another train of thought to discuss / consider.

'Don't sell in Britain unless you have to, or you are sure.'

 If you can rent out your property and keep up with British inflation you seem to have more options in the future. I suppose a further sub-variant is  'if you can't keep and rent out YOUR current property in Britain should you retain a different one,  a toehold as a BTL ?'

[Victoria]

Yes, there definitely is a parallel between emigrants moving to America and Australia during the last century. Since we 'joined' Europe there has been a steady flow of people moving to, in particular France and Spain so I think you can call yourselves pioneers. Perhaps more so in that you have the language and culture barrier that wasn't there in the colonies. The big difference of course is that geographically we are so much nearer 'home' and it's easier to hop on a plane if homesickness really sets in. I watched a programme last year (presented by Nadia Sawalha) about people selling up and going to Spain. Some of the stories of how they were trying to make a living were hair-raising, but some were inspirational - the least likely-looking people showed a lot of gumption and tenacity. I suspect that it won't be long before some undergrad or graduate chooses the subject as his/her thesis - It would make a good book! (and there's plenty of material on this forum) Or does someone know better?

[Russethouse]

>>>I think that the individuals mental attitude of ' I'm not going to fail' (whether misplaced or not) is perhaps the key factor in why some choose to buy and others are more cautious and choose to rent<<<

I think that letting a property in the UK is a 'win win' in this situation - it can (although not always) give some income and maintains an investment.

Indeed I am sure there is a case to be made for never buying in France in that situation, even if you do intend your stay to be permanent.

I have friends who have just returned to the Uk after trying to fulfill their dream of living in Spain, they sold, much against everybody's advice, a very nice house in a desirable Thameside village. They moved to Spain with a job to go to, rented for a while, then bought a house on a small development which had just been finished. The job went pear shaped, the electricity was never connected to the house as promised (so they had to use a generator)and the swimming pool has cracked and can't be used.

As their oldest daughter is 11 and would be starting secondary education here - ( they were not very impressed with the Spanish system,) they decided to return.

Now they are renting here and face trying to sell the Spanish house before regaining a foothold on the UK property market. They will both have to work like demons for the foreseeable future, but never the less are pleased to be back.

If only they had let their house they would just have been facing starting again after a year away.

In this instance it was Spain, but it could just have easily been France.

[Teamedup]

The pioneer spirit, now that conjures something of a romantic notion, but coming to France.......?  Don't see that, don't get that at all. I've done a bit of lowering my standards since I 've been here at more than one point, I find no attraction in genteel poverty or living in isolated rural penury which the notion of the pioneer also summons up for me.

 

I don't doubt that roughing it will work for some, necessity is after all the mother of invention. But for those who can't manage, well the idea of getting out of the UK and never going back without really knowing where one is going seems like a folie of some sort of grand order.

Still we are make our choices don't we. Interesting subject.

[Viv]

But TU, how many businesses were set up selling rural wrecks to British people ? and how many Brits grabbed these 'opportunities' with both hands?

This is not something that I have chosen for myself, and deliberately chose not to downsize. I have a much nicer house in France than I could ever have had in the UK  and although my standard of living has gone down, my quality of life has gone up.

The US pioneers had it very tough to start with, nothing romantic in their life style at all, but I'm sure their descendants are happy enough!

Yes , I know, I'm going off the subject again  sorry 

[Hegs]

A lot of English move to France, not just to move to France full stop, but to set up a business. That might be moving an existing business or starting a new one. The new businesses tend to be tourism based and so the "new house" isn't just the home it is the business premises.... they need capital to convert the premises and that generally will require taking out the equity from the UK property.

Is that mad? I just read a report that the number of tourists to our local airport is expected to triple in the next two years with new routes. The gite owners I know in the very local area are planning new gites etc, which to me doesn't suggest they are suffering that much.

Risk is risk. There are a whole load to Asian businesses in the UK (including one I worked for for a few years) where the owners arrived as refugees with literally nothing and took huge risks, but made them into great successes by sheer hard work.

[Russethouse]

Yes but surely many Asians came knowing they would have to work their butts off, and they did, in some cases living in a situation where beds were shared on a shift system.

AFAIK They were also not reliant on other Asians coming to the Uk and staying with them for a leisure break. Asians came because the pay was better in the Uk and there were more jobs for their families.

Can you say the same of France today ?

I'm not sure there is much comparison

[Hegs]

Russethouse said...

>They moved to Spain with a job to go to

>AFAIK They were also not reliant on other Asians coming to the Uk and staying with them for a leisure break. Asians came >because the pay was better in the Uk and there were more jobs for their families.

So the Brits who moved to Spain with a job to go to were foolish, but the Asians who moved to the UK for a job and a better life were not? Surely your British friends were unlucky, but the Asians who moved to the UK were (generally) not?

>Can you say the same of France today ?

Yes. Have a look near Toulouse, where I live. There are families here from all over Europe and wider who have moved because their job has moved here - and some are only staying because of the job.

Maybe that doesn't apply where you live, but I am still in the same France you are...

[letrangere]

I suspect that it won't be long before some undergrad or graduate chooses the subject as his/her thesis - It would make a good book! (and there's plenty of material on this forum)

Victoria, we know of one man who already has, a post-grad at the University of Bordeaux.  He posted here some time ago with an interesting questionnaire asking a wide range of questions including level of education, language ability, previous experience of living abroad, why France, etc.  Shame we can't read the end result. 

Sorry, TU, can't agree that "pioneers" were romantic figures.  We were living in Aus at the time of bi-centennial celebrations and one thing that came across so clearly out of all the media coverage and retrospectives was just how wretched life was for the first few generations. There's an extraordinary painting by Fred McCubbin in the main gallery in Perth entitled "Down on his luck" that sums it all up.  My goodness you can see the despair in this poor old pioneer's face.  Can't imagine even running an ailing gite complex in the back of beyond could have that effect on anyone today.  And sincerely hope it doesn't.

I realise Sikh Nippy's venture in the Ardeche didn't take off (or was that Nigel's fault?) but in general Asians make a success of their businesses wherever they go in the world be it the UK, East Africa, North America, the Middle East, the list is endless.  They simply have what it takes.

M