We've decided to move

[Le Blob]

My wife and I have a 3 year plan to move to the South West of France, a region that we have come to enjoy enormously.  We would ultimately be looking for a property that will ‘work for us’ as well as being our sole residence.  Ideally we would be looking for a property with about 5 or more bedrooms and some land.  More importantly it would contain Gites (as many as possible) thereby giving my wife some form of income.  The maximum we could afford to spend  is about €800,000.  Is it realistic to find this sort of property, and do they often come on the market?

Added to this I will be looking for a job.  I imagine myself getting involved in some sort Estate Agent type position, but haven’t got any experience in the field and am not sure if this would be a significantly hampering factor in the French market.  Given that there a number of Brits buying in that area I am hoping that, being virtually fluent in French, I may have something to offer, and I see it as something I should be able to turn my hand to this quite easily. 

Any advice is appreciated (other than I'm wasting my time!!!).

Thanks

[SaligoBay]

[quote user="Le Blob"]The maximum we could afford to spend  is about €800,000.  Is it realistic [/quote]

Forget it, Blob.  You can't even get a GARAGE for that in the south of France these days.

[Le Blob]

Guess I'll have to get a big car then!

[Sunday Driver]

[quote user="Le Blob"]

Any advice is appreciated (other than I'm wasting my time!!!).

Thanks

[/quote]

So if someone responded with clearly researched reasons why your 3-year plan was unlikely to be achieved based on your wide ranging aspirations and limited budget, and offered objective insights into why your lack of any experience in the French housing market might be a hampering factor, then you wouldn't be interested in what they have to say?

[Christine Animal]

That's a nice name, Le Blob   [:)]

 

[Monika]

I can't believe that 800'000 Euros would not buy a house in the South West of France (after all the Southwest is fairly large) and it must be possible to make a living with all that Tourist Industry or selling expensive houses!

[The Riff-Raff Element]

One of the pay-per-click ads on this very site is offering a "beautiful

house in SW France, 5 bedrooms, pool, completely renovated, £295,000"

so €800,000 doesn't sound so stupid. It's about the same capital as we

invested in three rental properties with 14 bedrooms between them. Mind

you, that was in the Vendée and it was a few years ago.

[ali-cat]

If you are looking in the South West - Aquitaine & Midi Pyrenees - I would say "no problem".  If it's in the Languedoc - it's possible.  Cote d'Azur - forget it.  There are always plenty of gite complexes for sale - but there is a very good reason for that.  It's a very risky business - especially if you buy in the wrong place. Don't underestimate how important it is to be close to an airport - which is used by budget airlines.   If you can offer something a little different - or very up-market, you could be onto a winner. 

My hubby & I thought about doing something similar - but not as our main income.   But I honestly don't know if spending extra money on a property, with a gite, would be worth it - with the extra taxes etc. it would probably end up costing us more than it is worth.  Our health is also not the best & it is very, very hard work.

On the Estate Agent side - when we were over in March we met two British Estate Agents, who both fell into the work.  Neither has ever done it before & were just offered jobs.  So it can happen!!  Make yourself known & keep your ear to the ground!!

Good luck & I really hope it works out for you. [:D]

 

[Le Blob]

Thanks very much.  Clearly going through the very beginning stages of research at the moment, and completely clueless about what the prospects are. 

[Le Blob]

No absolutely not!!  I don't want the dream bubble broken!!  Seriously though all views appreciated.

[Cerise]

Depending on which part of the SW you want to move to.  I think that for that much money you would be better off buying yourselves a smallish house to live in and a couple of others to rent out full time.  Certainly in this part that would be achievable and although all year round rent is not as high as gite rental - in the long run it is possibly easier and less uncertain.  Don't want to scare you but I currently know people in this part of SW (borders of Tarn/Aveyron/Tarn and Garonne) who only have 2 or 3 weeks of bookings for this year.  This may pick up last minute but around here bookings are certainly down this year.  Yes, I do also know those with 12 and 13 weeks booked but most of those are well established with lots of repeat bookings.

The downside of long term rental is that you can't pull out easily and the tax implications of owning several houses have to be considered.  As for the estate agency business, it is true that some folk have just got jobs, but it really depends if you need to earn serious money or just a bit of pocket money.  The latter is more likely I feel after you have paid all your cotisations etc.  You don't say if you both speak French but you should consider it necessary if you want any sort of work. (Whoops you do say you do)

Mostly I think it depends what lifestyle you hope to achieve, we certainly moved here with a great deal less money than that, but have no dependents, no loans and although we manage to make a living it is modest one which often leaves me longing for a few more luxuries.

Maggi

 

[Quillan]

Talking to an agent the other day expensive houses are not getting sold and are standing still round here and people are having to drop their prices by around 20% to get things sold. Theres loads of cheap stuff though (60 - 100k Euro) just look in the agents windows. So perhaps buying a gaggle of houses close together and creating your own Gite's might be doable. Do remember that there is a glut of Gites down here and when a survey was carried out a couple of years back there were something like 50 something beds available for every person visiting the region in July and August and that figure did not include (looking for) Hotels and camp sites a(nd thats the ones they knew about). God only knows how many there are now. But as some here know hard work and paying attention to detail will get you clients. You just have to be smarter and better than the average gite owner.

[WJT]

[quote user="jond"]One of the pay-per-click ads on this very site is offering a "beautiful house in SW France, 5 bedrooms, pool, completely renovated, £295,000" so €800,000 doesn't sound so stupid. It's about the same capital as we invested in three rental properties with 14 bedrooms between them. Mind you, that was in the Vendée and it was a few years ago.
[/quote]

I just did a conversion and £295,000 converts to about €425,000 euros , which is almost half his budget. €800,000 converts to over £525,000. I would think that in the SW where he is wanting to buy he would have no problem.

Here in the Dordogne you could buy an incredibly beautiful substantial property even a chateau for that amount of money. However, warning, I don't believe a good place to be buying gites.

I think you would have an abundance of choice with gites on the market at the moment. Others could advise better than me on this because we don't have one but there does seem particularly in Brit areas an over saturation and is becoming very difficult to make a profit or even cover costs.  Having said that with your budget and a lot of research, personally I would say it is more than possible to buy an up and business with a genuine reason for selling.

Quite shocked at people turning there nose up at that sort of budget [blink]

 

 

[SaligoBay]

[quote user="WJT"]

Quite shocked at people turning there nose up at that sort of budget [blink]

[/quote]

I don't see anyone turning their noses up.  I thought it was a joke, we've had a couple of them recently.  No offence, but loadsamoney, the gite thing, and can I work at something I have no previous experience in?

But there certainly ain't nothing round this area for 100 000, except maybe flats.  Mind you, that could be a moneyspinner.  I went to look at one with a friend a couple of months ago, 800 euros a month for a tiny, 2-bed place that didn't even have a proper kitchen.

[The Riff-Raff Element]

[quote user="WJT"]

I think you would have an abundance of choice

with gites on the market at the moment. Others could advise

better than me on this because we don't have one but there

does seem particularly in Brit areas an over saturation and is

becoming very difficult to make a profit or even cover costs. 

Having said that with your budget and a lot of research, personally I

would say it is more than possible to buy an up and business with a

genuine reason for selling.

[/quote]

It's a different thread for a different section, but, yes, it is

becoming clear that in some areas it can be difficult to run a viable

accomodation business, particularly on a small scale or if there is

nothing particularly special about the area or the property itself.

Personally, I would not get too hung up on being on top of an airport

served by "budget" carriers. Out of summer, no-one can hold a candle to

them in terms of fares, but in summer they frequently don't compete

well with standard carriers or (for family groups) with the ferries.

Plus, budget carriers are more likely to throw a hissy fit and twich

the rug out from under an airport if their every whim is not met, which

could leave any business plan based on their presence up a certain

creek fabled in legend and song, in a barbed wire canoe, sans

paddle. I would take a look at which airports were within no more than

two hours drive and make sure that there is a good spread of carriers

coming into them rather than depending upon a single location. Also, I

would make sure I was within an hour of a motorway junction and

preferably within an hour of a railway station served by TGV - quite a

few of these now have car hire and this is becoming quite a popular

alternative means of travel. Maybe even more so as prices for jet fuel,

marine fueloils and motor fuels show little sign of falling - trains in

France are effectively nuclear powered...

[WJT]

SB, you weren't the only one and I was beginning to worry that 800,000 seemed a very small budget. I know that in Provence it won't buy much but I thought you were serious about it only buying a garage in your area [:$].

I really don't know about gites but with the market the way it is now, I would imagine it would buy a very beautiful home in most parts of France or at least I certainly hope so [:)]

[Jo53]

You might well be able to make more money and have a MUCH more relaxing life by investing say half your money in buying a house or a couple of flats in the UK and letting them out (assuming you don't need much of a mortgage to do this). You would also retain a foot in the UK property market. You could then use the rest to buy somewhere in France. As for the estate agency thing, I'm sure it's possible, but bear in mind that 100s of cash-strapped Brits already in the area will have the same idea (ditto the gites).

Jo

[Chauffour]

I think some have already said it but I'll say it again; if you're prepared to offer something different or special and put in the work WITHOUT  major mortgage or debt liabilities you can do it.

We offer much more than just a gite holiday; the extra income from catering for clients of our 2 gites and other gites locally plus our pizza club make a massive difference to our income. But you have to have a passion for food and love having the clients through the door all year round. We have also thought of developing gourmet weekends here, which if marketed correctly could work in the shoulder season. If the US market starts to travel again there could be good money to be made in guided tours for them.

As far as tax complications go, I don't know what the fuss is all about. A gite is classed as a micro-enterprise; you say how much you earned and they give you a tax bill based on your our own figures.

Your fluent French is a bonus, you'd be surprised how many of us only speak enough to get by...    not sure about the estate agent thing as there are already loads around here?

You will find something right for you, decide if you want to go for the cheap & cheerful family market or the country house, gourmet market and search accordingly.

Good Luck

hhtp://www.chauffour.com

[nimportequoi]

[quote user="Chauffour"]

As far as tax complications go, I don't know what the fuss is all about. A gite is classed as a micro-enterprise; you say how much you earned and they give you a tax bill based on your our own figures.

[/quote]

Not always, it depends in your income, amongst other things.

Chauffour, I've had a peek at your website and I think your gites are lovely, I have one really picky complaint concerning your website, on your Farmhouse details, it should read: the Farmhouse comprises ...., it doesn't comprise of...

It's just a pet hate of mine, sorry!

[Chauffour]

change done! sorry about my English, after all i'm Italian, and Tracy's a scouser!

shame that now that the website is 'perfect' we are selling... next stop South Africa!

Massimo