Latitudes Top Tips to Help you Select the Right French Houses for Sale
What Benefits do you want from Your House in France?
Decide why you are Buying a House in France
What will you use the property for?
What weather do you want to have?
Think about the size of the garden
Where you would like your French property to be situated?
Do you have any hobbies that you would like to follow in France?
Do you want to drive in France?
Proximity to neighbours
Consider the journey to and from the property
It is easy to be overwhelmed with details when reviewing homes to buy in France. As with many things in life, you can make finding and buying a property in
France easy or difficult, you can enjoy the search process or make it worrying and hard work. You can make it a research project or a practical search.
We would advise you to proceed so that your search for a home or holiday home in France is enjoyable and fun, but at the same time you need to follow some basic rules so that you end up with a purchase that is financially safe and secure without any present or future problems.
What Benefits do you want from Your House in France?
Deciding Your Requirements
Before you start your search, it is a good idea to come up with 3 lists to help
Latitudes find you the best potential homes in France:
1. What must your new house in France have?– e.g. minimum number of bedrooms/bathrooms, garden, isolated etc.
2. What would you like your French house to have?– e.g. sea views, pool, number of bedrooms, in a village
3. What would be completely unacceptable?– e.g. no garden, isolated, in a village
Decide why you are Buying a House in France
Come to a decision about what you are looking for and the reason and purpose for buying a house in France. It will save you a huge amount of time if you make these decisions and discuss them with your partner, spouse or family before you start searching.
Once you know what you will be using the property for, how you will be using it and who you would like to use it, it will be a lot easier to decide on the type of property you require.
When choosing a house in France, things to think about carefully include:
What will you use the property for? – holidays, weekends, letting out, pure investment, long term stays or as a permanent home. Will it be a place to get away from it all or a family holiday home to accommodate your whole family? This will give you an indication of the minimum size of house you need to buy and the general layout that would suit your needs
What weather do you want to have?
What is the weather like in the areas you are considering buying a property? If you are going to be in the South of France which offers sunshine almost from March to October, then bear in mind that the living room area may not be as important as the outside area, the terrace and garden will be where you are going to do much of your living. A covered terrace may not seem very important when you are looking at properties in the UK but when you are in the South of France and wish to eat outside on most days, it is really quite important.
Think about the size of the garden.
It is tempting to ask for as much land as you can get but remember that you will be responsible for looking after that land, not allowing it to become overgrown and perhaps a fire hazard etc. Decide on what would be necessary for your own comfort and pleasure. Bear in mind that if you are using it as a second home you may not feel like spending the time you have there mowing lawns and pulling out weeds from acres of land.
Where you would like your French property to be situated?
Consider the weather, activities available, countryside, mountains, town or coast, isolation or close to amenities, sophisticated or a more simple lifestyle.
Do you have any hobbies that you would like to follow in France?
Such as golfing, fishing, country walks, tennis and even eating in good restaurants or people watching from a sunny café. Take care to establish that the area you are choosing can offer facilities for these.
Take account of the ages of your children
Or grandchildren so that you make sure that the area provides suitable entertainment for them. If you have animals, cats, dogs, horses etc. then include what they require on your must have list.
Do you want to drive in France?
If you don’t want to drive in France, or don’t want to drive very much, then make sure to choose areas where there is good public transport - not always the case in France where in rural areas there is often no public transport.
If you don’t drive you should consider buying in a village with shops and amenities but this will sometimes limit the style of the property as it is more likely that homes in or on the edge of villages will not have acres of land surrounding them.
Take note that not all villages in France have shops or any amenities, a village may be just a group of houses so make this clear when requesting details. If you do buy in a rural village or small town without any public transport, then if you don’t want to drive, be aware that you will be totally stuck in that one village and surrounding area and also consider how you will get to the property from train stations, airports or ports and check out the costs of taxis as they can be expensive.
Proximity to neighbours.
You may have a preference to not be at close proximity to your neighbours - this should go down on your ‘must have’ list. Please explain your requirements so we can assist by making recommendations.
Consider the journey to and from the property.
If you are going to be coming and going often you will not want a long and arduous journey which will gradually put you off going. Depending on where in the UK you live and how many times a year you intend to go, choose areas of France that offer direct flights from a nearby airport in the UK, TGV stations or ferry ports that have ferries from UK ports that you can reach easily. Even if you are going to live permanently in the property or for months at a time, you may like to consider that if you want friends and family to visit you often, the journey needs to be reasonably easy and not too expensive.
If you have given due thought to all these factors, it will help Latitudes to find the right house in France for your personal needs.
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