Gite complex

[valiantlad]

Hi to all you people out there, just wondered if anyone had their crystal ball at hand to give out some advice on our french dream? You know the score all the propaganda TV programmes painting the idyllic lifestyle in the sun away from the day to day drudgery that you all lead!! Well we have the same idea but after reading recent articles and their pessimistic view that gite complexes have had their day  wondered if anyone on the ground could throw a little information this way. I understand from what I have read on threads on this forum about people who have rented gites in the past using the equity in their Uk property to finance a French holiday home and then subsequently renting it out, this seems quite logical but I would think that ther are still people wanting to explore france from the gite perspective.

I suppose what I am asking is will there still be a market for the gite complex? 

We are a family that currently spends very little quality time together due to myself and my wife having demanding full time jobs, and to make matters worse I work every other weekend and night shifts to boot, not to mention we both have to travel some way to work. throw in the 5 children and 1 on the way and you get the general picture ( please no advice on family planning! ). Our dream was to totally sell up in the Uk and purchase an existing gite complex or similar for around 550,000 Euro and we always expected that the work would be hard but we would be together and see more of each other as afamily.

My wifes mother and brother are both long standing residents of France but have no knowledge of the holiday industry, any replies would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks      

[Fontremy]

It depends on a lot of factors but it can be done. If you buy well, in the right area, have the right facilities price correctly and market well then you can make it work. That's a lot of things to get right, however!

From my own experience it seems like there is very good demand for more than one property on the same site from groups of friends and/or family holidaying together. My gut feeling is that this is a trend as people get less and less time to see friends and family at home that they are increasingly going away together. We are almost full across 4 properties next summer for the main 10 weeks as a result largely of group bookings.

Good luck!

FR

[Paolo]

Valiantlad,

Your numbers concern me: 550,000 euros for a gite complex is not a big number, but 8 mouths to feed, etc. off the resulting income is.

I would take a good look at the rest of these forums, dedicated to the reality of actually living in France. Have a look at the Education forum for likely effects on your children - the older ones may not share your dreams! The little 'uns won't really know what's going on.

I don't want to sound negative but these are my concerns as someone whose thoughts are heading the same way as yours for next year. I would not be buying a gite complex, but I would be displacing children (only two, and very young).

When I see a programme about a family moving to France because they don't see enough of each other in the UK, they never seem to have a proper plan for their income, and are basically unemployable because they don't speak a word of French. Don't be like them!

Paolo

[valiantlad]

Thanks for your replies, to be more accurate on the sibling front the probability is that only two of the children will be going with us, my 2 children (9 & 6) from a previous marriage will be staying in the UK with their Mum. The oldest of the children (15) is currently doing GCSE's and will continue his A levels staying with relations in the UK. The 12 year old wants nothing more than to be with her Grand mother in France and the other 9 year old is currently unaware of the plans, the reason being we are just in the process of finishing off our property in the UK prior to marketing it. Our reason for not telling him are that we don't really want to cause him any unrest where it's not required, plus he'd pester us to death about it!!

The figure of 550,000 Euro is a figure that would leave us mortgage free and we do have a small income from a website that we own and run.  

We will however have to have some sort of facility to feed and home all the above at some time though,(maybe we could charge them!) and we hope the quality time we will have together should outweigh any negatives.  

Thanks for your views they are very much appreciated. 

[Val_2]

You don't actually state where in France you would like to locate to. Recently the Place in the Sun home and away series have been in various french regions and to be honest,with some of the budgets they had to find property with, there didn't seem to be great deal out there especially if you are looking to buy a complex situation rather than just one large property. Yesterday's programme with £500K to spend didn't yield up a great deal either compared to what you could buy with that two years ago, so you need to find a good value for money/unsaturated region where property is available and not the popular places like the north west and all down the western side. To support many mouths is a problem and the turnover to cover expenses and day to day living needs to be seriously researched - France is not a cheap country anymore when you have to pay for your health and pension to say the least. I've long said these TV programmes give no factual reality to property purchasers from overseas,but this year you can see how the prices have risen with the enormous budgets people have to spend,and they still think you can live here on bread,cheese and drink wine all day long.

[Miki]

I agree with all your points made Val and can only disagree with one.

I personally would say it was not a good thing to go somewhere "unsaturated?" Sounds in theory to be a good thing but the reason for the great part, is that those places are usually "unsaturated" due to persons not wanting to holiday there in large numbers and that, at the end of the day, is the bottom line in letting properties.

When we looked around after selling in the Dordogne, we were tempted to buy something in a more "economic" range and have our new business in an area that was half the price of some we were looking at. It can be very tempting to know you would have a nice lump sum to put in the bank, then you look around for a couple of days, chat with people and generally suss out the situation. It was pretty obvious that there was not a lot of places or leisure sites to tempt people out to these places and difficult to see if people would ever come back after one holiday.

We looked at a few of these " cheaper options" and then had to be honest to ourselves, we still had a good few years to work and any money saved would soon start to drain away due to the business not gaining enough turnover.

Easy to say but the simple rule of thumb is generally if it's cheap, why? Well the answer doesn't take much to think about, as long as one doesn't let the price blind you. You will know that by the way one buys the better materials in the building trade, you only want to purchase once.

Having said all that, there will be exceptions to the rule and that's the chance one has to take, can you afford to get it wrong though?    

My theory though experience, wrongly or rightly, is that, if we did have to do it all over again, would be to buy a run down (through lack of money, inspiration, well a general lack of anything really !) place in a good tourist area. Buy it at the right price (it is possible but patience will be needed) and get it done, either personally with help or by using trades or both and using quality products, put a pool in and advertise it well.  Also essential today is an excellent website. There is more in the equation of course but they are among my top options. 

 

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

This is going to be the topic for a few weeks/months and decisions made now will make or break people i feel.

If i were in an identical position.....

Market research is a key to this. In sterling you have around £350,000. I would leave £50,000 aside as 4 or 5 years emergency money. In that time you should be more or less fluent and settled and if it came to the stick and lift you should be able to find employment being bilingual etc.

I think i'd be looking at a fairly specialised market of say 'walkers' or 'motorcyclists' I would buy a 'to renovate' ensemble of buildings for say £150,000 and spend the other £150,000 doing up to suit purpose, i.e secure bike store, pressure washer, few tools, air line etc (i'm a motorcyclist and these things matter). I wouldn't do up a property to be really luxurious and then let out to hikers or vice versa, rough property and try to get upmarket clientelle. It is quite obvious really but many seem to make big mistakes.

What would YOU require in a holiday let / b and b With a load of kids i bet it'd be things to do and see and space, so a nice mown field that the youngsters can run free in is a big plus, a cheap second hand bouncy castle on site would be a big bonus, cheap Deacthlon bikes for all would be good, lots of little things add up and word of mouth is a marvellous thing. The old adage, if its good tell your mates, if its bad tell me and i'll fix it.

I believe there is still the market there but you cannot rely on a specific area just because Ryanair fly there (today they may, tomorrow??) I'm sure the P and O situation has people with Gites in Brittany sat biting their nails. Choose somewhere with all the right attributes for what your target renters want. Another common sense thing but something folk seem to overlook or ignore.

As we are in the very fortunate position  of doing up an old barn with no intention or need to rent out, we have looked at all the above from a distance as others have bought and either done well or floundered.The internet and forums like this are great. You are obviously very sensible and not rushing in now will pay dividends later, all the very best and let us know where you're looking and how you're doing

Dave

[CatherineS2]

Please be careful about buying cheap secondhand bouncy castles or decathlon bikes, or any other equipment for that matter - in this current litigious climate, you have to be very aware of health and safety issues - you would not want to be sued because someone injured themselves on a piece of equipment supplied by you