Is there something wrong with Firbeix?

[Maria]

I passed through 24450 Firbeix on the N21 and saw a nice little house for sale.  I decided to try and find it on the internet when I got home.  I found it but also found lots of other houses advertised for sale in what seems to be only a small village.  The proportion of houses for sale seems huge.  So does anybody know whether there is something wrong with this place or if something is happening there to suddenly make everyone put their houses on the market?

[confused of chalus]

I don't think if there is anything wrong with Firbeix - seems quite a nice village to me. Still has a bakery, good bar/resto/tabac and very helpful garage, and is only a few minutes from me, so that can't be bad!!!!. BUT these houses haven't suddenly gone up for sale, most have been up for sale for at least 5 years,and when local people want a house they tend to build new (see the development of pavilions round the lake). Could it be they are overpriced? We have noticed round here that French vendors seem happy to leave the house empty for years at a time with unrealistic price tags, probably because the owners have died and relatives are not in a hurry to sell.

A perfectly good house at the bottom of our garden has been on the market for 8 years to our knowledge. She won't drop the silly price and pays for gardeners to keep the grass down while living with her daughter. It's not old (and pretty) enough to attract the Brits, and is too old for the French buyers, but I often think it would have been a much more sensible buy for us than the renovation project (money pit) we live in. Still, once we are finished we can forget how much it has cost and just live our lives in a beautiful spot.

[NormanH]

I don't know this particular villages, but I do like to check out Google Street view to get the 'feel' of places if I think I might like to visit them.

For example [IMG]http://i253.photobucket.com/albums/hh80/bfb_album/Screenshotfrom2012-07-08191859.png[/IMG]

[Montcigoux]

I know Firbeix well. Houses do seem to stay on the market there for years. I went to look at one with my Mum a few years back and it was still for sale several years later. The only thing wrong I know of which puts people off is the 24/7 heavy traffic noise from the N21 especially as there are two long hills at either end of the village so you get the big lorries grinding up the hill. From about now the road also gets very busy during the summer season. The road noise carries quite a long way too into the countryside around the N21.

On the plus side compared to ten years ago the village has really improved. Many derelict old buildings have been renovated and the fishing lake has now been made the most of as a tourist spot and there is now a friterie! Nearest small supermarket in La Coquille my daughter went to school there.

For access to services, Firbeix is right at the limit of the Dordogne the Limousin is literally on the village boundary, so you have about an hours journey to get to Limoges and Perigeux which makes buying things from the "grandes surfaces" and dealing with the Dordogne administration a bit of a mission too..

[nomoss]

Maybe people get fed up running the gauntlet to cross the road http://www.sudouest.fr/2012/03/23/trois-mort-s-dont-un-elu-666695-1841.php

[Debra]

We pass through there to our camping property and have been doing so for years.  The accidents mentioned in that link explain why they've slowed the traffic down through there and maybe that's helped the noise too.  It's more like half an hour to Limoges and 50 mins to Perigeux I think - and the shop at La Coquille is a bit expensive, so the Intermarche in Chalus is probably just as close and better priced!  It always looks well kept and still has a school, which is more than I can say for our village in the Charente, as we've lost ours this year!