Buying A House In France

House Hunting In South West France

House Hunting In South West France

For many people the 2008 Global Financial Crisis and the fall out from that period was a difficult time. For us the economic downturn enabled us to fulfill a dream and buy a stone house in the town of Sarlat — la – Caneda in SW France.

I set off to France in September of 2010 on a discovery mission, my job was to do some ground work, get a handle on the market, make a short list for the OH and I to view together when he arrived in France a couple of weeks later. Our chosen area was a small part of the Dordogne as close to the medieval town of Sarlat as possible.

I set myself up in a small hotel in the medieval centre, hired a car and was ready to go. Ready to find a house in France.

While I had set up some viewings before I arrived, my general plan was to visit some of the real estate agents in Sarlat to see what they had on their books and hopefully get to visit some properties.

I was up bright and early on Monday morning and off to a real estate agent office I had spied the day before with an English Speaking sign in their window. It is here I met Francoise, a French lady who had lived in the UK for 20 years and along with her British husband ran the agency. Francoise was a godsend not only showing me a number of great properties but guiding me through the property buying process.

One of the things Francoise said which stuck with me throughout the entire process was “You need to be in a town or village with people around you, if you buy in the country or a remote location you will not meet people and you could become very isolated” - very wise words.

I looked at four or five houses with Francoise. The first was an eclectic stone house high on the hill with a huge garden a 15 minute walk from the centre of Sarlat, the second a Mayor's office that had been converted into a house in a tiny hamlet, the third a ‘renovators delight’ with a broken down pool and stunning views and a couple of others with no real redeeming features.

I absolutely loved the first house I saw. It ticked almost all our boxes, it was within our budget and best of all was walking distance to Sarlat.

However..

I felt I couldn’t phone the OH and tell him I wanted to buy the first house I’ve seen and I had appointments to see other houses with other agents so I pushed on looking at a few other houses. Some were nice, some just not right, one was a gorgeous, beautifully renovated cottage in the country but it was just too remote.

In the end though I just kept coming back to the stone house sitting high on the hill above Sarlat.

After numerous long distance conversations and photos winging through cyberspace we made an offer on the house and to our delight it was accepted. Fortunately the OH liked the house as much as I did when he arrived in France, and we busily set about making plans for the changes and renovations we would do when the house was finally ours.

We flew back to Sydney excited about our new home and to set packing up our lives in Australia and completing the necessary documentation on moving to France, our first introduction the French bureaucracy - but more on the later.