Living in France

[Karl]

Can anyone tell me what percentage of people on here are living in France and making a living from the income of solely their B&B or Gite comlex’s.

and apart from the bookings what are the biggest concerns or issues if any

[Beryl]

Looking at your other post,  you will struggle to get one gite on that budget. I would add that I think you would struggle to get good accomodation for yourselves alone.

You may find a wreck somewhere that needs doing up within your budget but the repairs may then eat into your budget more than you anticipated.

Also  these wrecks are often / always cheap because nobody wants to live there, there is no work and nothing to do or see. Not really in the best place to try and attract potential customers remember location, location, location.

Have you got a Plan B ?[:D]

[Val_2]

If you remember that gîtes were originally set up by farmers with unused outbuildings/cottages to subsidise their meagre incomes here in France, they did not do them solely to gain their only income and therein lies the truth. I know many french people here who let holiday cottages/flats etc but not one single one of them relies on this as income to keep them going and what some do make,usually gets ploughed back in by way of improvements, cotisations and tax. Some of the gîte complexes you see for sale are in excess of half a million euros for any sort of decent income and then remember that the season is very short unless you have some wonderful setup and can tempt visitors all year round which is very rare.  Even a decent house to buy to live in here these days costs over 100,000€ and if you go along the renovation route, expect to pay the same amount again that you paid for the property just to get it habitable and that is investment you will not get back for many many years. We did a conversion job for clients last year which was an old coach house extra to their cottage, just our bill alone for the building work was over 70,000€ without the decor and furnishings and drainage and landscaping and they are still not really ready to let yet due to the outside grounds not being finished.