How to Invest in a Holiday Home in France

France has an eternal allure for many Britons. We’ve had a love-hate relationship stretching back centuries, but the truth is many of us would love to own a home there.

Instructions

Difficulty: Challenging

1. Read up on the subject. There are publications which specialise in the investment market for holiday homes abroad or in France specifically. For example, take a look at the French Property News.
2. Attend exhibitions. You’ll find there are exhibitions in the UK showcasing the opportunities that exist in the investment market for French holiday homes. They bring a whole host of experienced professionals together, making it the ideal place for you to get advice, explore your idea further if your thoughts are still at the exploratory stage, or make deals and commitments.
3. Take expert advice. There are many financial and legal pitfalls which might catch you unaware when you first venture into investing in a property abroad. You could try and work it all out yourself but you may end up wishing you had talked to a specialist.
4. When you’re picking a property you hope to rent out, think of what your average holiday-maker looks for in a holiday home: rural locale, traditional French exterior features--pool, courtyard, maybe a well and some ivy creeping along old stone walls.
5. Look for a property in a region that’s well-served by international and preferably cheap flights. Ideally, you want a route served by more than one carrier. That way, if one air carrier pulls out of that market for whatever reason, the region can still remain viable as a popular holiday destination. There’s a good web-based interactive map tool which shows carrier routes visually (see Resources).
6. You won’t be able to check on your holiday home directly most of the time, and all kinds of unpleasant things could happen while you’re away. One solution is to contract with locals to perform basic house-keeping and maintenance services. The popularity of holiday homes in France is such that there are now a number of local businesses which specialise in this.

Tips & Warnings

• If you’re thinking of re-selling your property at a future date, properties close to luxury hotels tend to be very popular. When wealthy guests stay at the hotels, they sometimes fall in love with the locale and choose to buy a home there. Naturally, property prices rise. If your goal is to buy cheap and later sell high, look for property in the neighbourhood of newly emerging luxury hotels.