View from the Foothills of France

Some personal views on living, working,
bringing up family and making the dream happen in the most beautiful region of France. View from the Foothills of France also includes some personal and professional thoughts and tips on finding and buying the perfect property in the Ariège and Haute Garonne regions.

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Buying a house and starting a new life in France; a real life story

By nadia, on 8th July 2013


I have a guest blog this week from some past clients who have just written the following piece for the excellent ‘Buy Your Dream House’ Blog and were kind enough to send it to me so here is their experience in their own words:

Buying a huge country home (like a ‘château’ or ‘maison de maître’) and moving to France to start a new life is truly the stuff dreams are made of! Yet most people only dream of it. This inspiring couple has done it! Find out how and get their advice.

 Exterior of house and barns

Maison Bernis, our new country home in the South West of France

Why Move to France?

Gavin and I lived in London for about seven years before moving to France. London was a vibrant place to live, offering entertainment on tap and interesting and challenging job opportunities. There was, however, something missing. The moment we started thinking about starting a family, London’s charm diminished further!

By the time our second little one had made his appearance, we were set on moving from London to the South West of France. It seems a crazy leap, but we did our homework and now find ourselves opening our heavy French shutters to views of the Pyrenees Mountains every morning. It is still surreal!

 

Our First Steps

So, how did we do it? One of the first things we did was to set-up a subscription to Living France magazine. It offers just the right amount of practical information and inspiring stories. We found ourselves reading a lot of the informative articles and it helped us greatly to get a good understanding of what we would encounter.

 

We’ve bought a piece of history

Selecting the Region

Next, we placed a large map of France on our kitchen wall. Beside that we hung an office-sized white board. Planning had started in earnest!

We used marker pens to draw in the hours of sunshine on the map in the various regions of France. We plotted the locations of the international airports (Gavin would need to commute often to London for work). We even indicated the locations of the nuclear power stations! (By this time it was 2011 and the Fukushima nuclear disaster was in the news.)

Every snippet of information was used to help us identify the region that we would then investigate further! It was the South West that won our hearts after considering all angles important to us.

 

We fell in love with the balconies and shutters of Maison Bernis, amongst so much more!

Finding the Right Property

Very importantly, we attended the France Show at Earls Court in London. It was here that we learned of a company that specialises in finding French property:  French Entrée.

We recognised that, with two young children in tow, we needed some help sourcing properties. And wow, what an incredible find French Entrée turned out to be! We could not have done this without them!

 

Nadia Jordan, THE property finder in our area (Gers), looked at over 80 properties on our behalf! We narrowed down the short-list together via emails and Skype. In September 2011, we flew to Toulouse to view the seven properties on our short-list. Remarkably, Maison Bernis was the very first property we visited.

I still remember doing a twirl near the open barn and noticing the views of the surrounding mountains and fields. We felt like we had found our home!

Maison Bernis is a Maison de Maître. Directly translated, that means ‘House of the Master’ or ’Manor House’.

It has five bedrooms and three bathrooms in the main house, all of which was in pretty good shape. It also comes with many outbuildings that all need extensive renovation. We are in the process of doing those renovations now – but that’s a whole other story in itself!

 

Unlocking our future…

Getting a Mortgage

Our mortgage advisors (Elena & Rob) of International Private Finance were also instrumental in helping us find the right mortgage. In December 2011, we signed for the property and by September 2012, we had moved in – just in time for the new school year.

The whole purchase process was remarkably easy and we couldn’t be happier with our decision to make the move! As soon as the sale of the house is signed, the house is essentially yours and you can start making other plans with the security of knowing the sale of the house isn’t going to fall through (which often happens in the UK).

 

Our new French kitchen

Our Future in Maison Bernis

From central London to rural France after four years of planning and the adventure has only just begun! We have been here for nine months now and have been loving every step of learning about life in France – and every step of our renovation projects!

Our plan is to welcome holiday guests starting in the summer of 2014. We will be only too excited to share our new home with them – and help them to love this region of France as much as we do! In a few years, we even plan to have our Maison Bernis to the stage that we’ll be ready to host weddings on our property!

Unlocking the door into the unknown has brought us to Maison Bernis

This is our dream and every day we are living our lives in pursuit of this life that we want. This truly is Wodara for us. It took four years of planning to make this happen – and not every day is easy – but we can honestly say that we are living our dream!

  • Contributed by:  Nicole and Gavin Erasmus
  • For more information:  Maison Bernis on Facebook
  • Photos:  all photos are courtesy of Nicole and Gavin

My dream home website: https://WODARA.WORDPRESS.COM/2013/06/26/BUY-YOUR-DREAM-HOUSE-IN-FRANCE/

 

 

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La Fête de la Musique

By nadia, on 19th June 2013

P1100840

Summer here in France begins with the sound of music. The 21st June marks the date not only of the first day of summer but, more importantly, of the public celebration of music and arts that is the Fête de la Musique. Launched in 1982 by the then Minister for Culture in order to promote music for everyone, it has become a much loved and celebrated festival all over France and has also spread to hundreds of other countries around the world.

On the 21st June from midday to midnight, just about every town in France will have some sort of event or concert taking place and all genres of music on the streets, in the squares, in public buildings, parks, stations and castles along with, of course, plenty of good food, wine and merrymaking. The department of the Ministry of Culture in charge of promoting the Fête de la Musique requires that all concerts must be free to the public, that all performers donate their time for free and that it be open to any musician, amateur or professional, who want to perform in it (hence the quality of the music on offer can vary hugely!) The aim of the Fête is to attract as large an audience as possible and to popularise every kind of music from classical to rock, jazz to fusion, latino to choral, for everyone of all ages and from all backgrounds.

Furthermore, the Fête de la Musique is a way to encourage the major music institutions (orchestras, operas, choirs, music schools) to perform outside their usual location and to develop exchanges between city centres and their outlying areas, to offer concerts in hospitals or in prisons, to promote encounters and exchanges between young musicians and well-known talents and to encourage a love of music of every and any kind.

Celebrated in over 110 countries around the world, it is now the world’s largest music event and if you are in France on 21st June, it is guaranteed to be happening where you are. Bonne fête.

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Is this a good time to buy French property?

By nadia, on 30th May 2013

View from terrace

House prices in France have been slowly falling for the last two years but 2013 has seen the market stabilise and prices and property transactions now appear to be on the increase in this region. This could be down to French mortgage rates which are at an all time low or because, thanks to the financial crisis, there are some stunning houses on the market right now, many for sale at less than their true market value and hence investors are moving in. If you have been waiting for the best time to buy a property in France, I would suggest that this might be it.

Belts are being tightened here as everywhere but quality of life remains high. What’s more, the Midi-Pyrenees region has an unusually high stock of beautifully and solidly built stone houses in beautiful locations and this, combined with record low mortgage rates means that it is a buyer’s market here right now. Borrowers can access stable, long-term low rates from 3.35% for a 20 year fixed rate and 20 year tracker mortgages from just 2%. These are the best rates investors have seen for over 65 years and the best in Europe so it’s no surprise that I am getting lots of interest from investors choosing to lock in some long-term capital in consistently high value and stable French bricks and mortar.

Perhaps that’s why this region is the only one in France showing positive growth in house prices in the first three months of 2013 according to first quarter statistics from National Federation for Estate Agents (FNAIM) in France:

Map of house prices 2013

This map shows a regional breakdown of values in the first quarter of 2013, compared to 2012.

The FNAIM also saw transactions towards the end of 2012 plummet 25 per cent due to the change in government with socialist leader Francois Hollande coming to power. Buyers and sellers were holding tight to see what happened to the market but the market in this region at least seems to be on the move again perhaps because buying a house in this part of France is seen as both a lifestyle choice as well as a sound financial investment.

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‘Communism’, ‘community’, the ‘commune’ – living in France illuminates the real meaning and the importance of ‘local’ government

By nadia, on 10th May 2013
The Mairie in the village of Arbas

The Mairie in the village of Arbas 

As a foreigner, it has taken me a good ten years to really understand the importance of the local mayor and Mairie in France because we just do not have the equivalent in the UK. We knew that when we moved in to our village that we were supposed to introduce ourselves to our local mayor, which we duly did. When we were converting our barn, I became on first-name terms with him and he was so pro our renovation that he managed to fast-track our planning application through the official procedure. When all the parents in our small hamlet (14 houses) got together to sign a petition for the provision of some kind of lighting at the bottom of the hill for the children waiting in the dark for the school bus at 7am every morning, just three months later, a solar-powered light was duly installed.

But it is the smaller, every day things that go unnoticed by the locals (who take such a service for granted) but which always amaze me, coming from a country where there is not much in the way of local decision-making anymore. Hence, our Mairie employs two full-time people just to look after the commune. By that I mean, sweeping the roads, clipping the hedges and verges, clearing out the ditches and maintaining the lights, school flower boxes etc. Oh and clearing the roads of snow and ice in the winter – and this is a very rural community where houses are scattered up hills and along gravel track roads but this service happens without fail.

The efficiency of this ground-level service was brought home to me again this week. We have had a stray dog in the garden for about four days, a lost hunting dog but this time with no collar so I have no way of returning it to its owners. But I also didn’t want to start feeding it as we already have two dogs and two cats who were understandably upset by a stranger in their midst. So finally I asked my neighbour what I should do and he immediately called the mayor who organized for the dog to be collected, taken to the vet to be checked for a chip or tattoo and then either to be restored it to its owner or try to get him re-homed by the SPA (the animal centres in France who care for and re-home stray animals.)

It’s apparently the same for any problem in the commune – M. le Mayor is the first point of call and, if he can’t fix it, he will know somebody who can. France is hugely criticised on the world stage for its number of state employees and I think we all know that the costs of these have become untenable but I hope that it will be the legions of pen-pushers and paper shifters who go before these hard-working locals who really care about and have a reason to ensure that their communities are well looked after and just make life that bit nicer for everyone.

 

 

 

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