can you live on a gite income?

[paul*y]

We have just bought a house in the Limousin region, near Lac de Vasivierre, we intend to make the attached barn into a gite, We are unsure as to whether to make one luxury 4 bed, or two 2 bed gites. Can anyone offer any advise as to which would possibly bring in most custom for the year as this will be our main/only source of income, (can we live or are we mad?)

Thanks.

Paul.

[Ejc]

My personnal preference would be two 2 beds - as you can always double them up for a family - but that is my preference and there are others far more experienced that can advise you on your best option. Also from everything I've read - gites will not support a family as the sole source of income - you'd need to either offer some else that meant you'de be full all year and have "added value" (courses or something similar) or be able to take on some sort of outside work.

We thought long and hard about going down this route - and finally agreed that everyway we looked at it - gites would not support us and so have started a business of our own that we can also do in France when we complete our move over to 79. That's our choice - but all we could see was that a few hard years with fewer bookings than we needed - and with all our capital tied up in property we may not be able to afford to stay on......

[nimportequoi]

I think its difficult to survive on a gite income alone unless a) you have a number of gites (at least 3) b) you have a usp (e.g. fishing lake, painting, or a pool c) you are on the coast d) you live in a really popular tourist area. Overheads are high, the gite market is saturated and there is more supply than demand except in August. Standards required are higher than ever, so it costs more to furnish and maintain properties the the expected level. You also need to pay a lot more in advertising than previously as there are so many different websites/brochures etc. available. Have a look at this article from earlier this week in the Daily Telegraph:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/property/main.jhtml?xml=/property/2005/07/02/pgite02.xml

I agree that 2 x 2 beds are better as you have more flexibility. I can rent out my small cottage from May to October no problem, but often end up letting out the larger ones at a reduced rate as there is far more demand for smaller properties outside of the school holidays, both for the UK and French market.

My partner still works in the UK and I work here in France, even though we do have a good income from the gites (we have a pool and are fairly close to the coast), but we put so much back into business with improvements and maintenance, that we couldn't live on the income alone!

[callmebubbles]

I am not really qualified to answer your question, but for what its worth my husband and I visited France (Midi Pyrenees) on 3 occasions this year before moving permanently in May, and on all 3 occasions (February, March and April) had an enormous struggle to find any accomodation whatsoever  (we do have a child and twin babies and were considering 2 or 3 bed accomodation). Nearly all gites seemed to be booked up, if not fully then almost so even at this time of year. I wonder whether the referrals to the saturation of the gite market are specific to certain areas of France, and if anyone knows whether Midi Pyrenees is not one such area?

[Eslier]

The "Chez Nous" brochure has 33 pages of gites in Midi-Pyrénées (exactly the same number as Normandy) compared with just 19 pages for Aquitaine.

[adrianpmills]

I read a lot of forum comments saying that the gite market is saturated. We live about half an hour from Vassiviere and know the region well. I reckon that there's a definite market here.  There is a lack of gites here and the area has been very well publicised over the last couple of years.  We have just bought a property with the intention of doing the same thing.  Good luck.

[Lori]

I would agree that 2 - 2 bedroom rentals would work better.  As far as living on gite income.  Depends on your lifestyle and debts, but our rental, which is 150 m2 2 bedroom (high quality) exceptional views, directly below the Mt. Ventoux (Bedoin) in a highly "saturated" gite area.  One hour 15 minutes from the beach, 30 minutes from Avignon, pool, etc., etc.,  etc., normally books, on average, 10 to 12 weeks per year.  We feel very lucky with this.  We could, in no way, live off the income.  Even if we booked double that, we would be at a stretch to try to live on that.

There are high costs involved in keeping up a "better than average" rental - AND advertising it correctly.  Here, in Provence, there are definitely TOO many vacation rentals.  I am quite confident this may not be the case all over France, but it certainly is here.

Anyway, it can be a lot of fun, but I would say, unless you have a great number of rentals, don't expect to make a living at it.

Good luck to you,

Lori

[magsw]

Could you not make two 2-bed gites that interconnected,giving you the best of both worlds?

[ChezShells]

Living on income?

Depends on location and advertising

Location - on road where you can have a sign, good few bookings to be had
Advertising - cant really help because ive never paid for advertising so dont know, except for major mag

Website - after time can be a god send but maybe with advertising at first - with the right one, what ever that is

Overall - depends how many gites you have and where they are, dont mean where n France but where in terms of passing trade

Any more info required, just ask

 

Good luck

Lee

[Blackadder<IMG src="http:forums.livingfrance.comimagesline.gif"><BR>Blackadder<BR>Keighley and Creuse]

As a regular Gite renter, all of the above is so true. Would definately go for two 2 bedded ones with an interconnect, on both floors!. You need somethin unique or special to get return business and advertising in the right places for your desired market....round there I'd look at the obvious, water sports magazines, cycling mags, walking mags. Do 'guided rides/walks' not necessarily guided by you but with maps and route cards done, lots of homework at this stage will make or breaqk the project i feel.

The old saying 'you're along time dead' should be turned on its head, cos you're along time alive so go for it and enjoy yourself. You'll never know unless you try.

[vrooje<BR>Cheers,<br>-Brooke<BR><br><B><A TARGET=blank HREF="http:www.experienceburgundy.com">http:www.experienceburgundy.com<A><B>]

I agree with the idea of a 2x2 with the possibility of connecting both gites. You can do this with various types of "hidden" doors, so that if a couple doesn't need access to the second gite, they will never know it is possible to connect them.

Also, I agree that it's very difficult to live off the gite income. After all costs are factored in, our gite does not make enough to live off the profits. And this year, we are booked for 21 weeks (in 21 -- Cote d'Or, Burgundy), so bookings are not the problem.

I do think it's possible to book a large number of weeks using internet-only advertising (we have). But do *not* underestimate the amount of hours this takes. It is a lot of work, building not only a good personal website but good rental listing ads! Constant vigilance, etc.

Good luck!

[euro]

Yes You are mad,just look at the chez nous & french connections websites and see how many people are already in Gites,plus how many new people sign up each week.

nearly every 2nd homeowner wants to rent a few weeks just to cover maintainence costs and help out with bills,they are not running a business,but simply taking rentals out of the market.

renovation costs are inevitably higher than anticipated when dealing with old property,and this investment is unlikely to be repaid running gites in a country with a seasonal climate,in a saturated and totally unpredictable market.

 

do something else or do gites somewhere new ?

 

steve

 

[paul*y]

Thanks to all who took the trouble to reply,

your comments have been very helpful. I do have my building skills so hopefully with the

language will come work.

We move to dept 87 in september, so nothing ventured nothing gained.

bye for now

Paul and Michelle

[mascamps.com]

We did the sums ourselves about two years ago and gites don't bring in enough as compared to something like a B&B. The basic problem is the size of building that you need is much, much larger for a gite income.

For example, say you have a single gite for four people. That will mean, at minimum, two bedrooms plus a kitchen plus a dining room ie four rooms. If you've got four rooms like that you can have eight people in B&B style and that also adds the income from the breakfast. For instance, in our own case we rent our gite out as both a gite and as a B&B room for four. When we rent it as a gite we get 50€ a day, as a B&B room we get 70€ plus (normally) 26€ for the breakfasts plus (in about 50% of the time) another 80€ for an evening meal ie almost twice the income for straight B&B and four times the income if they take an evening meal.

The other advantage we've found is that we book it at a B&B room a whole lot more frequently simply because it can be booked as a single night B&B yet it's a week minimum as a gite.

Yes, it's harder doing B&B but we pull in two to four times the income vs the same space used as a gite.

 

Arnold

 

[nimportequoi]

Arnold,

Out of season I do get and take bookings for single nights, not just whole weeks, especially to French people. Not as many as a B&B would though!

I was interested how you manage to combine the gite and B&B business as one of my gites is a large property which is difficult to let outside holidays and weekends. Do you have to have all the rooms en suite and are there other B&B regulations which you would have to apply to the property? At the moment, running gites leaves me free to work in the week, but I agree with what you say that the space needed and consequent maintenance and upkeep involved in gites makes the profit margins a little slim compared to B&B.

[mascamps.com]

I was surprised at how the French use the "gite" too. Apparently if they are looking for a "B&B" for a large number of people they actually search for a gite.

One thing that we found out quite early on was that it's essential to be able to lock the kitchen door if you're letting it out for less than a week as otherwise the amount of cleaning work far outweighs the income from a one or two night "B&B" let.

We are hoping that this property will provide us with enough of an income to keep us going on its own. This is our second year at it and it looks like we will have enough in this year to cover all the costs and provide a (small) income.

All but two of the rooms are ensuite. We originally didn't even bother listing the non-ensuites but they have proved to be very popular with the French 'cos they're a little cheaper. I don't know that there are any B&B regs in addition to the normal gite ones per se though obviously some things will be a little different (locks on the bedroom doors for instance) and you need to have a drinks license even if you're just serving breakfast (just a license 1 and it's free). Downside of running B&B style is that you need a LOT more sheets etc. - we will have ten rooms worth to get cleaned tomorrow, four the day after, ten the next day and six or seven the day after!

Arnold

 

[nimportequoi]

Thanks Arnold, that is very interesting info! I totally agree that the French to pay as little as possible, they are quite happy to squeeze as many people into a gite as possible, no regard at all for the comfort level! I've noticed that a lot of French gite owners are now asking an amount per person per night instead of a rate for the whole house - of course if there are 16 people instead of 12 they do use a lot more water etc. However, they do provide me with a good winter income and always leave the gites immaculate.

Good points about the sheets and towels, for the gites a double set is all I need, I don't know where I would store any more than that! And locking the kitchen door, the kitchen always takes the most cleaning. Only problem is with my properties they can't get in or out without going through the kitchens, so I maybe I better have a re-think after all.

Susan

[mascamps.com]

If you can't lock the kitchen you'd need to take a cleaning deposit. It's not everyone that messes it up but it happens often enough (and mainly with one nighters) that we ended up having a door and lock fitted.

The French are definitely the most tidy bunch of people that we get. We had a French family of 27 in over the New Year and they left all the sheets etc. neatly folded on the beds, rubbish in bags etc. So tidy in fact that it took us less time to clean up 12 rooms than it normally does for 3 or 4!

 

 

Arnold