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  BUYING A HOUSE IN FRANCE - Where to buy in Dordogne If you asked most international buyers to picture their ideal corner of rural France, there is a fair chance they would end up imagining something remarkably close to the Dordogne. Old stone houses, medieval villages, rivers winding beneath châteaux, bustling market towns, long lunches on restaurant terraces and enough countryside to disappear into without necessarily feeling cut off from civilisation. It is hardly surprising that Dordogne has been attracting British, Dutch, Belgian and German buyers for decades, with increasing interest from Americans as well. But Dordogne is a large department, and deciding that you want to buy a house in Dordogne is only the beginning. Where in Dordogne should you actually buy? That was the question I looked at in my video, “ BUYING A HOUSE IN FRANCE - Where to buy in Dordogne ” , filmed while walking around Terrasson-la-Villedieu. Dordogne or Périgord? First, a little geography. Dordogne is ...
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  715,000€ Really? Don't Get Stung When Buying a House in France Every now and again, I like to have a look online and see what new properties have appeared for sale in my local area. Recently, one caught my attention immediately. Not because of the property itself, but because of the asking price: €715,000. Now, this particular property is in a commune where I lived for many years, so I know the local market extremely well. And when I saw €715,000, my first thought was that there are probably only half a dozen properties in the entire commune that could realistically justify that sort of price. And I know most of them. So naturally, I had a closer look. When the description sells a dream The property description certainly didn't hold back. It talked about a "unique 3-hectare estate", "two elegant and interconnected residences", a "rare and confidential domain", "untouched nature", "high-end features" and even described the prop...
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  Crowd funding renovations - What happens when you need to sell? There is something undeniably compelling about watching somebody renovate a ruined French château on YouTube. You know the sort of thing. It is a cold winter evening, you are sitting comfortably at home, and on the screen a courageous couple are battling leaking roofs, rotten windows, collapsing floors and a renovation budget that appears to have developed a life of its own. At the beginning, it is difficult not to admire them. They have looked at a building that most people would quietly walk away from and decided, somehow, that they can save it. And increasingly, they are not doing it alone. I looked at this question in my video “ Crowd funding renovations - What happens when you need to sell? ” because while crowdfunding a château renovation can seem wonderfully straightforward when the money is being raised, the situation can look rather different several years later if that property has to be sold. But for thos...
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  Selling a house in France just got complicated The French government has a habit of throwing spanners into the works when it comes to selling a house in France. Sometimes it feels as though a new rule is introduced, everyone tries to work out how it is supposed to work in practice, and the finer details are sorted out afterwards. One example was the change to the rules surrounding the information buyers must receive about natural and environmental risks affecting a property. So, what are Géorisques? If you have bought or sold property in France before, you may remember the ERP, or État des Risques et Pollutions. Before that, we had the ERNMT. Then the ESRIS. Then things were supposedly simplified with the ERP. The terminology has changed over the years, but the basic idea is relatively straightforward: a buyer should be informed about certain risks that may affect the property or its immediate area. These can include things such as: Flooding Seismic activity Subsidence and ground...
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  France Visa Requirements Stripped Down to Basics If you're thinking about buying a house in France, one question very quickly raises its head: How do I actually get a visa to live in France? There is plenty of information online about French visas. The problem is that a lot of it tries to cover every possible situation at once: retirees, workers, families, second-home owners, students, people starting businesses and just about everyone in between. By the end of it, what should be a relatively straightforward explanation can sound terrifyingly complicated. So in my video, France Visa Requirements Stripped Down to Basics , I decided to do exactly what the title says and strip the subject back to the basic principles. Obviously everyone's circumstances are different, and your eventual application needs to reflect your particular situation. But if you're looking at moving to France without working here, there are essentially three big things you need to think about. 1. Somewh...
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  Buying a House in France: Is Brittany the Best Region? If you're thinking about buying a house in France, Brittany is probably one of the regions that has appeared on your radar. For British buyers in particular, it has always been an obvious choice. It's relatively easy to reach, property can still be surprisingly affordable once you move away from the coast, and there's no shortage of beautiful countryside, historic towns and traditional stone houses. But Brittany is a big region, and there's quite a difference between buying on the coast, 30 minutes inland or right in the middle of rural Brittany. So, is Brittany actually one of the best places to buy a house in France? I originally explored this question while wandering around Josselin, one of Brittany's prettiest small towns, in my video BUYING A HOUSE IN FRANCE - Is Brittany the best region? Here’s a closer look. Where exactly is Brittany? Brittany, or Bretagne in French, is the large peninsula in the northw...
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