Not so any more. The Brits in particular bought a lot of the cheap French properties near the channel ports, [...]]]> Not so long ago people were falling over themselves to take advantage of cheap French property. Places like Paris and Cannes have always been high priced but almost everywhere else in France was packed with bargains.

Not so any more. The Brits in particular bought a lot of the cheap French properties near the channel ports, for obvious reasons. Other places became hot-spots for people from the UK – the Dordogne in particular. If you’re looking for cheap property in France you won’t want to be wasting your time down there. Lovely area but so anglicized that they even have a cricket league!

It’s not only the Brits of course. Plenty of Dutch, Germans and Americans have vacation homes in France (maison secondaire) or live here permanently. Anything within a couple of hours of Paris is also premium territory for wealthy Parisians for the weekend.

So has cheap French property all gone?

Depends what you’re looking for. If you’re expecting to find a habitable place near the coast you’ll need to spend proper money. Likewise any vacation area of France – like the Alps or Pyrenees – anywhere near a big city or anywhere close to an airport. Cheap flights have made these kind of French properties very sought-after and prices have shot up.

On the other hand, the Centre region remains very affordable. It’s a quiet farming area and although one of the largest in France in terms of square miles it is one of the least populated. There are few big cities and not a great deal of employment. You can fly from Tours to Stanstead in the UK or from Limoges to several destinations but they’re small airports with infrequent flights so it’s an area that has avoided the “incomers” boom. There are plenty of Brits around – and quit a few Dutch – but this is still proper French France and you’ll need to be prepared to learn the language if you want to have an easy life here (which is how we like it!).

Elsewhere, if you’re looking for cheap property in France you’ll probably need to be looking at modest places or at renovation. There’s plenty of French renovation property around but there are pitfalls. Having renovated an old French farmhouse myself I know it’s easy to under-estimate costs. I’ll get into this in more detail in another post but for now let’s just say you need to be very careful, do your homework and get plenty of building quotes.

I wouldn’t want to put anybody off. There’s a great sense of satisfaction and you can end up with a beautiful building. It just isn’t necessarily easy – unless you’ve got deep pockets and then you probably wouldn’t be looking for cheap French property in the first place!

So there’s a lot less cheap French property than there was, and the market has leveled out so you’re not going to make a fast buck by buying and selling. If you’re prepared to be patient you can still find bargain French houses, but it isn’t as easy as it was. My best advice would be to learn the market a bit and find out what to look for. My friend Jeff’s book The French Property Buyers Guide would be a few dollars well invested. Spend time trawling through plenty of online real estate sites too (agence immobilier). Check back regularly so you get a feel for what’s going on and a sensible view of the kind of property in a particular area.

Before I go, there’s a nifty way of saving yourself a good chunk of cash on French property if you have half-decent French language skills – get yourself round to as many Notaires as you can find.

Notaires are the officials who do French property conveyancing. They don’t work for the government but their fees for carrying out your house purchase paperwork are strictly controlled. What a lot of people don’t know is that Notaires can offer property for sale as well as doing the paperwork. Imagine it like your solicitor also being your real estate agent!

The important point here is that an ordinary agence immobilier will charge you anything between 8% and 12% to sell you your dream French home – and the buyer pays this fee, not the seller. A notaire will usually charge you just 1%.

That’s a biiiiiiig difference!

For ease of doing the math let’s say it’s 10% on a 100,000 Euro home (which in itself is a cheap French property). That’s 10,000 you might save! Worth learning a bit of the French language for?

The reason I say learning a bit of French is that most notaires do the estate agency as a bit of a sideline. Their fees are less because it’s not how they make most of their money. Accordingly they quite often don’t speak English and their services may not be as comprehensive as a real estate agent.

The point is that if you speak even just a little French you’ll be confident enough to go in and ask. Often the offices can be quite well hidden so it’s worth searching off the main street. They won’t have big signs, probably just a small brass plaque with their name and the word Notaire.

They might not have quite the range of houses either, but if you can find what you want and save yourself 10% it’s worth a bit of digging around wouldn’t you say?

For a good place to browse the French property market try here. For some free French lessons click either of those two ads on the top right.