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Your maison secondaire


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I've had my little house now for ten years - long enough to know what mistakes I made when I bought.

I think the thing I regret most often is not having a bigger freezer. I bought a fairly large fridge with a small freezer compartment thinking that I would only be using fresh food which is true. Even so I would love to be able to freeze some of the stuff I've either grown myself or been given in times of glut.

What would you do differently ?

Hoddy
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I am on my second maison secondaire, and certainly learnt from the first one. I realise that SUNLIGHT is hugely important to me, and the ability to move easily from preparing food indoors to eating it outdoors without having to carry trays down steps, through narrow doorways etc.

So, aspect (facing south or southwest), plus nice (quiet) neighbours would be a major concern another time.

Angela
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An interesting topic since we are about to make an offer on our potential holiday home within the next month or so.......especially the rent or buy question.  Renting is more financially sensible I'm sure but we want our own garden (which is something we don't have in England).
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I would find somewhere closer to the airport.

 

Don't misunderstand, I love our house, what we have done to it, our neighbours, everything in fact - except that when we bought, it was not envisaged that I would end up commutiong every weekend from Germany to here.  for the last 4 years - nearly 14% of my life has been involved in that commute.

 

But of course what I wish for is the same house in the same environs with the same people around and just 20 minutes from the airport - and that is just a dream.

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Very interesting topic and I have just been researching an article for FPN for publication later this year, having come across a body called the Slow Home movement - based on the 'slow food' campaign (the antithesis of fast food!). For anyone looking for a first or second home in France or anywhere else I would recommened a book witten by the founders entitled 'What's wrong with this house?' by John Brown and Matthew North (available on amazon.com for under $20).

The most interesting part is their checklist to use when deciding between two or more properties: it covers the location (aspect, environment etc) as well as checkpoints for each room and their relationship to each other. The book includes diagrams of similarly sized/priced properties but shows how one scores over the others in terms of 'livability' and good value.

One point I would echo from undertaking numerous searches is to check and re-check the neighbourhood, at different times of day and the week, even the season. As noted areas can go down as well as up, and you need to be ruthless in your approach and avoid being blinded by  'falling in love' with a property. It is amazing how much you can overlook on a first visit.

 

 

 

 

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The size of the garden.

However, that's because we bought the house as a second home and then ended up living in it.

We saw how my Mum worried about having to get back to France to mow the grass and decided we'd get a house with a small, manageable garden - enough to be able to sit outside and have a barbecue and maybe for a small swingset and padding pool but not so big we couldn't cut the grass in half an hour when we arrived! 

When we later decided to move out here permanently we wished we'd got a bigger garden after all - especially as I had another child and he would have really benefitted from a larger garden (the others were already at the stage of going off to play football, if they played outside at all, and I didn't want a football pitch!).  That's the main reason we decided to sell our house - but it's taking a while to get it all decorated and ready to put on the market!

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[quote user="KathyF"]I think the only thing I would do differently is INSIST on MOH putting the foil-backed reflective insulation in the converted grenier. We just hadn't realised how hot it would get up there in summer. Phew....[/quote]If it makes you feel any better, we put it up and the boys are up there now, X-boxing away, complaining about how hot it is!   I've told them to open all the windows and turn some of the machinery off!  (PC, two laptops, two TV's, X-box and PS2!)

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We initially rented and then built and lived in that house for years. We had been considering getting a pied a terre in Bretagne, financially it would have been difficult, although we have always managed to do what we really wanted. We decided not to even try and buy and I wouldn't do anything differently. And even when we were considering, I was thinking along the lines of an appt somewhere, us as absentee owners didn't want a garden to sort out.

Why this decision, well unless I was filthy rich, I wouldn't want to just holiday in one particular place all the time, which is what all my friends who have second homes have ended up doing and what we would have ended up doing. Which is not to say that I have never been back to the same place, I have, but maybe a couple or so years later. Houses need attention, they cannot be abandoned for a couple of years and then be welcoming.

 

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Kitchen sensibly placed for garden / outside eating area.

If coming in the winter - decent heating - nothing worse than a cold home in the depth of winter, or spending time getting logs etc organised ......

Good insulation  - especially the pipes and roofs (and walls if you can - cuts costs of heating / air con considerably).  Better done before than after.

Good storage areas.

And for permanent home: rent and then buy (we know one couple who are renting and have arranged to buy once they have sold their house in the UK.  Try before buy is an excellent idea if you can manage it.

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In spite of previously having purchased 3 other houses with no problems, after the current one I would make a satisfactory complete professional structural and condition survey a condition suspensive in any purchase agreement. The obligatory "surveys" are a joke.
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[quote user="Pickles"]If you want an apartment ... RENT, don't buy. TF and service charges can be high.

[/quote]

We bought our apartment and don't regret it at all; taxes and service charges are high, but that's not something we regret at all. If renting, the owner can sell and you'll be out of your home, as we've seen in our apartment block. Another plus about owning is that you have a say in the managing company, cleaning company, gardeners etc; we changed the last two a few weeks ago, and I spoke about the last two at the AG, with both those I preferred being chosen; everyone had moaned about the previous cleaning company for the past two years, but had been unwilling (especially the French owners) to change in case a worse company was chosen.

If you own you can also join the conseil syndical and have influence over other things during the course of your membership; I was voted on to our CS this year, and we have already improved communication between owners, dampened the very noisy main gate (a bane in the life of those living near it! - it didn't affect me as I live on the other side) and have several other projects started.

To answer the OP's question; we bought in a small town we already knew well, which is very alive in winter. We have a large garden in England, and as we only spend 6 months a year in France, chose one with just a balcony but overlooking the large garden, so we have the benefit of the trees and grass as part of our view, and the birds and bats etc which we love. We specially chose one that was south-facing as we bought mainly for the winter; we hadn't appreciated quite how hot it would be inside in summer, despite investing in a large awning, and have now installed AC.

We have much more light than we had realised there would be, which is lovely in winter - we bought off-plan, when only the garages and part of the ground flor was built, so couldn't have known or how much sun we would get all year because of the tree layout. We also benefit from a loggia, which we didn't appreciate when told about it; it means we can sit outside in the depths of winter, reading or eating lunch (albeit in fleeces) and enjoy being outside even if it's pouring with rain - we're covered by the roof covering half the balcony and are sheltered because of the shape of the building.

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I think Norman was unusually a little too timid when he tried to point out that the correct term is residence secondaire, not maison secondaire. I dont know why, -  mais c'est comme ça!

I have no regrets in having bought in an area that could not possibly go downhill any further, except of course were I to leave [;-)]

Only advice is not to get too hung up on long term plans and/or box yourself into a corner where you can only move forward in one direction, whatever current fiscal situation you base your plans on will not be the one in force when you come to realisation, try to be flexible andbe prepared to move with the times.

 

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[quote user="gardengirl "][quote user="Pickles"]If you want an apartment ... RENT, don't buy. TF and service charges can be high.

[/quote]

We bought our apartment and don't regret it at all; taxes and service charges are high, but that's not something we regret at all.[/quote]

We don't regret it, and knew what we were buying into (especially from a cost point of view), but I would stand by it as a warning to others: there are many advantages of having a city-centre apartment (as ours is) over having a house in the country: but there are additional costs involved which mean that you pay for the advantages!

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What I did learn was that I would never ever have a south or west facing kitchen ever again. East or north for me from now on, cannot be cooking a big meal in a furnace.

I don't mind walking the food outside, I just don't need to be collapsing with the heat before I have to walk it out.

And that south facing terrace we built and couldn't use in mid summer........no matter how much shade we put up, it was still too hot. One lives and learns.

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What/Where-ever you decide to live, things change. I have few regrets about choice of where and what the house is, though it's had it's share of challenges, but two things have become a bit of a pain.
 The local village had a very good cafe/bar, 1k away, almost within rolling distance, but that closed, and then an excellent restaurant, though very expensive, opened up, tempting occasionally but not frequently.
Whilst we usually have our own transport and can even cycle to a goodly range of shops 5k and restaurants 12k,
a car is essential to get to and from the airport, public transport is non-existant, even the local train station is 20k away and here's the rub,
Taxi's here are like hen's teeth and extremely expensive.

 

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We bought our 'pad' 8 years ago with the idea to move to France when we retired - this didn't happen, we just come for the summer. For the first 5 years we spent all our holidays - Winter & summer in the house. Lots had to be done, some by us. We had the usual ups & downs and nearly came to blows but we came through. At first family & friends would visit and help but now - it's too much trouble.

We're too remote - nearest small town - 6kms, nearest town - 15kms.  So we've put it up for sale - not that we envisage it will sell in the near future but not to worry, we'll still make full use of the house and have no regrets.

On reflection, we should have done more research on the area, not bought such a big house with a barn and a big garden, but then hindsight is a wonderfull thing.

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Quite difficult to answer this at present as still getting over the loss of another friend. I only realised after I had bought the house that the friendliness of some of the locals had been a major factor in influencing the choice of location. For such a small village, it has been a real shock for 2 of those new friends to die quite young and for 2 more to move far way, one of whom also died soon after.

Makes you realise that personal relationships are more important than bricks, mortar and an acre of land.

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I think I was right in wanting a village house and not a ruin in a field.  There are many advantages and we got to know lots of people.

Now our it's our residence principale, we still love it but are moving a modern house on the edge of the village, with parking and great view and no close (alcoholic) neighbours. Still a small house but now we will be able to walk onto our terrace instead of climbing up 39 steps to it.

I think the distinction between maison and residence is that you can own lots of houses (money permitting) but only live in one as your main residence.  This is relevant when it comes to completing tax returns. 

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