1. This week we’ve have 2 of our adult children and their partners staying with us and all of
them have been so intrigued about how we found this fantastically majestic house albeit
requiring work, that we bought over a year ago and wondered how we found it. So I
thought it might be useful to have a few tips from me based on our own experience of the
different properties in France and how to go about finding the right place. So where
actually do you start?
At The Beginning!
Well do as much research as you can from home, give yourself time, if you set out with the
attitude that Rome wasn’t built in a day and finding the right place might not happen
straight away then you’ll definitely be off to a good start. Once you decide on an area of
France, think about what’s important to you in terms of location both in France generally
but also in terms of whether you’d like to be in a village or a town or you’re happy to be in
the countryside, perhaps quite isolated but with are more reliant. Regarding your actual
property and once you’ve got your budget cleared, think about what you actually need, if
a small cottage say 1 or 2 bedrooms is all that’s going to be required, that’s absolutely
fine.
Be Prepared For Lots Of Visits
But remember that once you’ve bought your new French property you’re going to
become very popular, that’s what we found out, we’ve been inundated with friends
wanting to look at it. So maybe a third bedroom might be a good idea, think of the future
years you’re going to have in your new property in France. Think about also outside
space; now we’ve got some friends who bought a wonderful property over in the south of
France, just to the Southwest of Toulouse, with a great big piece of earth, they have dogs
and they grow vegetables and they have fantastic views, however it is isolated and not
near to any shops, which is fine, but think about whether you really want to do that,
whether you want to be there, for example, in the winter months.
Finding Your Ideal Location
You might prefer to be perhaps in a village as we are where you have basic facilities and
it’s more of a community. Just consider what’s important to you and once you have a clear
idea of your criteria, contact some estate agents, don’t be persuaded by them to steer
away from what you want but the more you fine tune what you want and tell them, the
more they’re likely to find your place more quickly.
You know, Mr. Fix-it and I took at least 3 trips; it might have been 4 I think, before we
finally bought this property. We went to 2 different areas and finally realized we loved
the south of France, but even then it took quite a lot of time just to find this place, you do
have to give yourself time, and think of it as a working holiday, that’s what we did.
When you look at properties in France, (after sorting your itinerary), you’ll have
appointments set up, but make sure you set enough time in between them because it
does often involve a lot of driving, some of the properties are located far from each other.
Give yourself a good hour off or even a day off on say a week or 10 day viewing trip.

2. So I wish you health and I’ll see you again soon.
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