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Wanted: Property Let or Purchase Near Sarlat/Salignac


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Hi all,

Unfortunately, our house purchase close to Salignac, just north of Sarlat, has just fallen through. We are still keen to move to the area and hope to do so this side of Xmas. We are looking for a minimum three bed house/gite for around 3-6 months, possibly a bit longer depending on how long it takes us to find somewhere else to buy.

Anyone with anything of interest please comment or email us at [email protected]. Would prefer to do this privately but if anyone has any good websites or Facebook pages for rentals in the area please let us know.

We are two adults, two kids and a middle-aged well-behaved dog.

Many thanks
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I try not to and don’t often ‘bite’ when the tired old cliches about various parts of the Dordogne are trotted out.

I have had a holiday home about 6 kilometres south of Sarlat for the last fifteen years and I love it and what’s more there are very few English people anywhere nearby.

What exactly is your experience of the Sarlat area Alittlebitfrench ? I do feel that it’s important that we give accurate information.

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Back on topic, we are now in the trêve hivernale and renters will be very cautious, well at least the French ones will, cant recall if you are looking for furnished or unfurnished but the standard rental terms are 3 years and 1 year respectively, given the time of year a French landlord will probably want a year up front and that is forgetting that you probably wont pass the income criteria if there is an insurer or agent involved.

 

Best to look for an off season gîte rental, cant see your posting maybe thats what you said! 

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@ Hoddy

I have nothing wrong with the Dordogne itself but I have never understood why the region is such a magnet for British/other expats. I went there (briefly) last spring and yes its lovely but there are thousands of equally nice places around France. The question is, why is Sarlat and the area around it such a magnet for the British ? I must say at this point that we did have however a nice hot chocolate in Sarlat with a nice view of Burtons. Sarlat is lovely, but to live with a family ????? We stayed in Domme, and every other house in the town seemed to be foreign.

The OP mentioned being middle aged and having kids. Would I move there with my kids ??? No.

I read an interesting thread from a French school teacher based in that area about expat kids who end up in schools in the Dordogne/Bergerac/Sarlat . He said that a vast majority of expat kids tend end their schooling with no real proficiency in any language which obviously affects their future .

I found his analysis quite interesting.

No UK TV in our house for that reason.
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Hi

Just for the record, the dog is middle-aged, I am a spring chicken. There are very few English around Salignac, certainly none in either of the schools we have identified for the kids. There's a real sense of community (French not expat) and I love foie gras. Vive Le Dordogne. What's not to ❤️
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PS101 wrote:

"Vive Le Dordogne. What's not to ❤️ "

Duck Pizza...LOL

Well, duck anything for that matter including Foie Gras. Yuk.

I just googled Salignac !!!!

Just out of interest, what the feck do you want to do in Salignac ? (I would insert a smily thing at this point but I can't with my browser on this super dooper forum.)
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What’s to like around Sarlat ...........

well, apart from the foie gras and confit de canard, the beautiful, often spectacular countryside, the mild weather, the cepes and girolles and the home grown fruit and vegetables, it’s the people.

Our nearest neighbour ( about 150 metres away) is more like a brother than a friend. Other neighbours have spent time in our house in England while we’re in France and we get invited to all the village events or just go along to them. I just don’t see many English although at an event last year I did meet a woman who had lived in Domme for so long that it was easier for us to converse in French than in English.

As for Sarlat, there’s a theatre festival in the summer, a film festival in the autumn and regular exhibitions of good artists, many more than in similar sized towns in England. The chocolate breakfast on the Rue de l Republique in Sarlat is truly wonderful even if it does require a week’s dieting to get over it.

I’m not surprised that a teacher has a low opinion of the English children’s French if it anything like the level of English taught to French children which is, in my opinion, quite poor. I’ve had to help lots of the kids out.

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Don't take any notice of him, PS101. He can't help it. It's his hobbyhorse.

ALBF - how do you know that PS101 hasn't got a well paid job lined up in the area? Or has family in the area? Or happy memories from his/her youth? Or just wants an adventure?

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@ Hoddy

You have just described the whole of France. That is my point. What you have described can be found in Pas de Calais as well as everywhere else. So why the Dordogne ?

In terms of schooling, putting children into a school that has many other English speaking children could have a detrimental effect on their ability to learn French. What the teacher was saying was that expat children leaving school in the Dordogne area tend to be relatively bilingual but not really good in either language. No mans land type of thing. It was interesting what he had to say.

@Patf. How are your British neighbours getting on ?
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ALBF:

So why the Dordogne ?

Well why the hell not. We know it's not your cup of tea and mine neither, but why shouldn't people move to and enjoy the Dordogne?

I would go brain dead living in a 60 sq. metre box in the Ile de France. You it seems are happy, or at least prepared to put up with it. I don't quiz your motives, I don't harp on about Paris being a busy rat-run of a place, full of the most ignorant and arrogant of the French nation plus a whole bunch of foreigners and tourists to drive you to distraction. I don't complain about the rip off Parisian prices for just about everything from an apartment downwards.

Just accept that we are all different. We have different motivations and different desires and thank goodness for that, otherwise the top of my little mountain would be very, very crowded.
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Andy, your opinions of Paris are very Cliché are they not. It is not like that at all how you describe. Well not in the suburbs.

Living in a 60 sq metre flat for two years. You have to do what you have to do in France. France is a hard place to earn a living. I am sure everyone will agree.

I stand by my point I made about schooling. Just be careful moving to rural areas with kids. Thats all.

I know many people who have inherited houses (us included) in beautiful rural areas who could sell up their main house tomorrow and move and live a comfortable life in the countryside. One of our friends has a suburb chalet/family house in the mountains of Savioe near Moutiers. All free and with views to die for and 30 mins from the slopes. It is a dream place and I am sure many thousands of expats would move there tomorrow.

However, our friends who own it (and they are not well of at all) will never move there with their kids.

I am just putting forward the French view on life in France.
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"I am just putting forward the French view on life in France."

Well, you're putting forward the French view of life as taken by those who happen to prefer living in cities. Then there's the other French view of life, as taken by those who happen to be happier living in the countryside and hate built up areas :-)
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@ PATF

I thought your neighbour was British and hated France ???

You have also said that there have been many British families that moved into your area over the years who have since moved back because of lack of work ???

Am I confusing you with someone else ?? I am getting old so you have to forgive me.

@ Eurotrash

I don't prefer cities at all. I am country born and bred. I would buy my friends chalet/house in the mountains (150,000 euros for anyone interested) tomorrow if we did not have kids. Blimey, we would be rich.....well not for long. That is the problem.
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If that is the case Mint, why can they not stop building appartements in cities. Wherever you go they are building, building building. They can't stop building. It is giving me a headache. The noise !!!!

Why also are houses so cheap in rural France ? I mean for the same price of a two bed flat in Tours you could buy a farmhouse near Sarlat or a chalet/house with crystal mountain views in Savoie.

This is all very confusing.
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I agree that there are other lovely parts of France. I like the area around Beaune and Macon very much, but when driving south on the A20 and I go round a bend and sees the Bassin de Brive ahead that just makes me feel like I’m being welcomed home. I suppose it’s a bit like falling in love. Plenty of people who you like, but not many that you actually love.

I agree about unemployment. I often find myself pointing out to visiting family and friends that our house is in quite a deprived area. It doesn’t show in the good weather with tatty markets, but in the winter when people are scouring the second hand clothes stalls which replace the catch-pennies it’s a different matter. It has recently been made worse by the closure of the only factory of any real size in Sarlat.

If what you think about British children not being good at English or French is true then that is the fault of the French education system in failing to adapt. I write as someone who worked for many years in a very multi-lingual school and although I can’t speak about how good they were at their mother tongue they all left with a good standard of English. One of them even wrote the “Hinglish” dictionary.

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I don't think it is a problem with the schooling system at all as the French curriculum in French schools is taught in French. Full stop. If you choose to enter your children into a French school with broken or non exist French then that is the responsibility of the parent to get them up to speed not the school.

My OH spends a good 1hr per evening with the kids homework and most of that is on French verbs. How expats families cope in this situation I really have no idea.

Without having a full grasp of written and spoken French upon leaving school kids will be at a massive disadvantage in the employment market in France. Of course they can work abroad, but would you want that ?. Me no, which is why it is French, French, French.

So certainly if I was an expat I would not enter my kids into a school with other English speaking students. To much of a distraction.

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ALBF - oh that one (or those ones.)There were 2, but it's just french people they don't like/trust. Mainly because they can't understand the language.

One of them is still here, (retired) will never return to the UK as they love being in the countryside.

The other has gone back to the UK - marriage problems, his wife is a toonie anyway.

And those who couldn't earn a living and support their family - I've always said that unless you're retired, or have a good job lined up, or have family here, it's not the place for you.

But sometimes it's best to at least try the adventure, even if it doesn't work out. You learn from mistakes, and won't  believe the negative reports  until you've proved it for yourself.

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This link arrived in my inbox a minute ago and I thought of this thread:

7 reasons why you shoukd live in the Dordogne:

http://www.completefrance.com/home/7_reasons_you_should_live_in_dordogne_1_4763758?utm_medium=email&utm_source=eshot&utm_campaign=newsletterlink

Sorry I can't make it live on my ipad.
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I'm glad you said 'near' Moutiers, as Moutiers is rather an arm pit of a place, helas, there are too many of such places in the Alpes, there again, these places are usually where there was factories and work.

And yet again, back to why some regions were taken up by foreigners, and surely that was usually down to the price. The locals had to leave to work and that left properties far far cheaper than in the big towns and cities in other regions of France. Add to that inherited properties that no one wanted or were split between too many family members which ended up being sold or left to wrack and ruin and then sold.

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Idun said ...

'And yet again, back to why some regions were taken up by foreigners, and surely that was usually down to the price. The locals had to leave to work and that left properties far far cheaper than in the big towns and cities in other regions of France'

I rest my case. So what hope do 'foreigners' have for finding work if the locals f*** off long before because there was naff all work. Apart from opening an unprofitable gîte, yogurt, camping site or just building dodgy roofs for other expats on the black what hope do expats have ?

Seriously. This is my point. STOP this nonsense. Move to France the right way.

@ Gardengirl

That article, does not really help does it. LOL

My wife (French) bought a slice of cheese in Domme. Just a slice, a small slice from a cheese shop. We were hungry.

IT COST 7 EUROS. YES 7 EUROS FOR THE MOST TINY SLICE OF CHEESE YOU COULD EVER IMAGINE.

Who said Paris was expensive ?
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I think we have highlighted the difference between the French and the British education systems. In my experience British schools do their best to teach their foreign pupils English.

I think your geography is a bit off ALBF. There is no cheese shop in Domme.

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