Five things I have learned about buying, selling, fixing-up and moving houses in France
listen up, Young Grasshopper
Over the past twenty years, I have moved homes like a snake shedding skin. For fifteen of those, the fallout of being a single mum deep in the trenches of pre and post-divorce lawfare, added to the relentless decline in writers’ pay, had me constantly scrambling to keep a roof over my and my children’s heads and pay the legal (and all the other) bills. Since 2019, when I came back to France after a few years in Ireland, with all the kids now independent, the house moves have dramatically accelerated. The little Normandy farm where I now live, bought at the end of last summer, was my fourth house in five years.
It helps that imagining new interiors in gorgeous old French houses (whether they’re mine or not) is probably my favourite thing to do, but four homes in five years was most definitely not planned. I’d hoped that the beautiful cottage on the edge of le Perche I bought in 2018 - the best I could afford as I tried (still trying!) to get closer to Paris where my children are mostly based - would be home for many years.
Beautiful edge of le Perche cottage: November 2018 - October 2022
Then came the pandemic, and when I was forced to sell it, it turned out that I was living in one of the most suddenly-desirable-to-Parisians parts of France. I paid off my mortgage and was a cash buyer of the next, much smaller village house in le Perche’s Golden Triangle. This felt fantastic! Then I went quite mad and got notions of myself as a property mogul. After a quick turnaround, let’s be honest, only a couple of notches above a Landlord Special, I flipped Perche Village house, and found myself in White Wisteria cottage, a lovely building, but in an utterly Godforsaken part of the country. They don’t call it the Diagonal of Emptiness for nothing and the part my house was in had very little going for it.
Landlord special Perche village house: October 2022- November 2023
Wisteria Cottage: October 2023- October 2024
Six months later, I had done my sums and most of the renovation needed to make the house into a comfortable summer getaway, and was again looking for something in Le Perche, ever nearer my children, with enough room to work. I was confident/deluded (French housing market crash much?) enough to go for a bridging loan until Wisteria Cottage was sold, which sped things up, but oh boy did it take its toll emotionally.
I’ll be posting plenty about the renovation and interior design of my (long may it stay) current home, but for now, here are the five main, sometimes painful, lessons I’ve learned about buying, selling, fixing up and moving houses in France.
