Sustainable Life in Pau?

[Chris_B]

My wife and I are considering a life in the foothills of the Pyrenees (probably just to the SW of Pau), and believe we are able to buy land with a number of properties to let (plus one to live in) for approx €300K.  We are fortunate enough to have this in cash, therefore a mortgage will not necessarily be required.

Can the forum comment on whether such property would be able to sustain a 'normal' lifestyle, which I believe from reading other posts requires an income of €1000 pm?

In addition, my wife has a degree in languages (Swedish and French) and is planning a TEFL course; while I have 15 years experience of telecommunications engineering, plus excellent PC/web design skills, and am generally quite practical around technology and DIY. Unfortunately I only have schoolboy French.  Are these skills in demand?

We are both very keen and flexible as to how we could make this work.  Thanks in advance for the reality check!

[Debra]

Hi Chris,

Assuming people have the energy for repetition, I anticipate/you should prepare yourself for lots of posts along the lines of: too broad a question/you're rich compared to us/you're poor compared to us/"normal" is relative (where did you get the €1000 idea from?) /jobs are very hard to come by in France if you're not fluent in French or even if you're not a French National/don't come if you haven't got income to sustain you or capital to fall back on/gites are empty everywhere.....etc etc

I note that you're a new user (welcome!) and so you may not realise that this site has a very good search facility on old threads, although it sounds as if you've already had a look at some.  Have you tried specific all forum searches on things like "cost of living", "rental", "gites income" (in your area specifically), "employment in France", "skills demand"?  There is a lot of information already on the site.

[Chris_B]

Thanks for the warning.  I have been reading some of the older threads and have already gleaned some useful info.  I got the €1000 from thread http://www.completefrance.com/cs/forums/585309/ShowPost.aspx, and can see that normal does appear to have quite a wide spread!

[Debra]

That thread said that amount monthly for a couple - but note that one post in it said €3000!!  We are a family of five and have been advised that we could live comfortably on €1000 per month by many people, including my mother, who has some book which helps you to work out the income you need to live on in France, taking into account the taxes and things like child benefit.  She was concerned that I'd have great conflict about moving if I thought I'd need my ex's child support to survive (ie worried that if he stopped paying it, which is easy to get away with for quite some time apparently, we'd starve and freeze) and so set out to do these calculations for me (not normally being at all mathematical - she normally would get me to do such things!) so that I could feel happy about moving to France, worry free, having enough income to survive on before considering any other scheme we might come up with to earn supplemental income in France.  The figure she actually came  up with via this book was €890 per month, as a basic guaranteed survival income, which assumed no rent or mortgage payments.  Oh - and in working this out she took out the allowance suggested by the book for hubby and I for clothes, or at least a huge chunk of their suggestion, as she considers we have enough clothes to last us a lifetime!!  Like I said - its relative.  Some people will suggest that we will starve and freeze if we were reduced to that amount and others will agree that its viable.

[Teamedup]

We have certainly had to scrimp and scrape at some points in our life but now I would not like to live as a couple on a 1000euros a month. Our bills come to over 500 euros a month and that is not including tax or petrol or anything for the dog, odd visits to the hairdressers, clothes, or paying a mutualist. It includes taxes fonciere, insurance, gas/electric, phone, internet and water. On a thousand a month there would very little left for anything at all. Subsistance living. I could do it, I wouldn't want to. Also, if one lives out in the sticks then one still has to shop. Villages shops if they exist are expensive and the cheapo shops like Lidl are usually in towns and that takes a drive and petrol.

 

Unless one had a nest egg then where does money for maintenance of one's home, replacing things, or car repairs even those unexpected bills come from, like modernising the fosse septique or branching to mains sewerage.

 

 

[Chris_B]

From the posts above, and reading other threads/forums my belief is that €1000 pm is minimum to survive.  That is very useful information that I did not have this morning.  Many thanks for the feedback so far.

It would be great if anyone could describe their experience, or give an indication, of whether you think property to the value €300,000 in the Pau region could provide accomodation + income in excess of  the minimum above.

[Debra]

You understood my point, Chris, we would intend to have other income and also capital to fall back on in emergencies but that figure should be enough for us to survive, frugally, as a family of five (not just a couple!) if we have to for any reason - and as a family who have to be sure we can feed and clothe our children, that's what we needed to know: the minimum figure for survival.

For opinions on the potential income your property might produce, I think you need to be more specific about what your intended property is made up of rather than just stating its value.  The value might give a clue to someone from the exact area, I suppose, but my experience is that the range of properties you can buy, even in the same area, vary hugely for the same purchasing power.

[Chris_B]

Thanks Debra.   I have already seen an advert for land + three 3 bed houses + pool that falls within the budget, and thought that I should be able to get a reasonable living from that.  Am I allowed to paste links to property pages to use as an example?

[The Riff-Raff Element]

As people's spending habits vary dramatically, one very useful "funny look" test runs as follows.

- Take you current monthly spend in the UK in sterling, being sure to include absolutely everything.

- Take out items that will definately be going; season tickets, mortgage, etc

- The figure you are left with in sterling, take without applying an

exchage rate to be a good guide as to the minimum NET income you would

need.

For example, say you did the above and arrived a £1200 spend per month.

That would suggest a requirement of €1200 per month. If you were

looking at activity that would only generate a net of €700 then it is

likely that you would want to find something else to supplement it.

The cost of living in France (and others will probably disagree) is

lower than in the UK, but not by that much. Real economies are made by

dint of the change in lifestyle (hence the reason that an exchange rate

is not applied in the above).

Not exhasutive, as I say, but a guide.

[JulieR]

I have done a breakdown of our bills including petrol and it comes to

€850 per month.  This does not include food, just taxe fonciere,

d'habitation, oil, electric, water, insurances &

telephone/internet.  We have been living in France for 8 months

now so most are actual amounts.  We do have a high taxe fonciere

because of having a pool and being on mains drainage.

Even so we have budgeted to be able to live on €1500 per month.

[Ormx]

chrisb, land +3 by 3 bed houses and pool for 300K sounds like a very good deal to me sw of Pau . My immediate question is what kind of condition are the buildings in. You may need another 300K for renovations etc....