REAL LIFE
order and the views were amazing, it was hard not to be put off by the common areas. In all, I was again heartened
by what I had seen on this trip – there were habitable choices within my budget. I resolved to carry on researching – this time widening the search area again in case I was missing out on opportunities in other parts of France.
VOSGES VIEWINGS A second concentration of cheaper properties seemed to be showing up in these wider searches, this time in the Vosges department in northeastern France. I’d passed through it on motorway journeys in the past but felt I needed to spend some time there to see it properly. I paid a visit in February 2020. The area is characterised by
rounded mountains (referred to as ballons in France) with extensive pine forests and charming valleys with lakes. There is a road right at the top of one of the highest of the range, the Ballon d’Alsace, and from there the spiked peaks of the Alps are visible on the horizon. There are ski resorts, but the winter of 2019/20 was very mild and the resorts struggled with a lack of snow. Ahead of my trip, I spotted
a couple of well-priced apartments online in adjacent spa towns. One seemed to be in a modest block of a
similar scale and age to the building where I viewed the apartments in Montluçon, so I was optimistic. However, on visiting the location, the block was just one of several clustered together, creating a very urbanised feel in the otherwise scenic location. The second spa town,
sadly, had an overwhelming feel of faded glory, which I found depressing. This was symbolised for me by a once- magnificent former hotel that wouldn’t have looked out of place on the Champs-Elysées in its glory days, but was now windowless and eerie. It was not a town I could feel at home in. I also viewed a house on the market for €25,000 in a village in an attractive valley but I was concerned it would need extensive damp treatment. In summary, I just didn’t feel that I had as much choice for my budget in Vosges as in Allier.
LOCKDOWN RESEARCH Other, more significant events were taking place at this time, of course. While I was on the Vosges trip, the news of the Covid pandemic was beginning to become more worrying. The first cases in the UK were confirmed but when I returned to Kent I still had no idea that the country was only weeks from the first national lockdown and that, as a result, it would be 2022 before I would seriously revisit
the possibilities of buying in France. I was very fortunate during lockdown. I may have been renting but I was lucky to have moved to a little cottage with a great garden in January 2020 and this was better suited than many other people’s homes as a place for my Labrador and I to be confined in. More to the point, I was glad not to have been affected by illness or the loss of anyone close to me during the pandemic when many others were not so lucky. Although unsure as to the
The River Sioule near the Pont de Menat in the Puy-de-Dôme
viability of my plan at the time, I did continue researching online throughout the lockdowns, searching listings further west of Allier and Puy- de-Dôme into Creuse, Corrèze and Cantal. I also improved my French by watching Netflix dramas in French with subtitles and as the world opened up again, I became more focused about what I wanted. I increased my budget to
Charles’ property has outbuildings The day Charles picked up the keys 76 FRENCH PROPERTY NEWS: May/June 2024
£50,000 and decided that I wanted a house rather than an apartment. The experience of viewing the maisonette in the village square and the apartment in the poorly maintained block in
Montluçon had highlighted the potential problems of shared or neighbouring spaces that would be out of my control but could affect my enjoyment of a property. Ideally, I wanted a detached house or a semi- detached place where the other half was well-maintained. And a good garden – I had rediscovered gardening during lockdown and my dog had loved having the space to run around and chase rabbits. And a view. Not too much to ask for £50,000 then… My online searches
suggested that the garden (or a field) was not as unrealistic as it may have seemed. Many rural areas of central France have suffered depopulation for decades so, unlike in Kent, buying in the countryside is not a luxury. Perhaps the biggest challenge would be finding somewhere that was at least habitable straight away because I didn’t have a budget for major repairs afterwards. My wider searches led me
back again to the hinterland of Montluçon as it still seemed to offer the most choice and benefited from being a shorter drive from Calais than areas further south and west. By the
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