can't stand this place anymore

I'll second everything that RDJ has said but add a word of caution, there is more work attached to running gites successfully than you may think. Cleaning properly on changeover days is one thing, and takes two of us two-three hours per gite, but after full occupancy of our three gites there's also twelve washing machine loads of bedding, all of which needs to be ironed before the next changeovers. While my OH is ironing, I'm cutting the grass, hedges, weeding the drive, de-rusting and painting the seven iron gates, unblocking drains, repairing washing machines......get the picture?
Now I'm not going to pretend that it's hard like running MandS or being a builder's labourer, but there's more in it than meets the eye if you want to be successful.

Remember that in France location is everything when it comes to property values; choose an area that has obvious attractions for holidaymakers and is commercially thriving in other sectors, because along with that goes good facilities, restaurants, etc. This means that your choice of British owned gite "complexes" on the market will be massively curtailed.

Whilst RDJ has a clear USP (I didn't know if we had one or not until I googled it!), ours, as well as our situation, has always been cleanliness, friendliness, maintenance, attention to detail and continual re-investment. It's surprising how often our guests report those basics have not been fulfilled elsewhere.

Steve

Mr M

My perspective is slightly different. I've been hiring Gites and small hotels once or twice a month for the last two years whilst our place was being rennovated. One can't help building a relationship with the owners of the places I return to. Their experiences echo exactly Smiffy, Steve and RDJ.

I think there is an oversupply in the market combined with changing traveller behaviour... Booking.com and AirBnB have had an effect. The place I often frequent has resorted to using booking.com due to low occupancy and its ageing clientele. These new types of bookings are one or two nights, they significantly reduce the margins (But better than nothing). The poor lady I know really well has a premium 8 gite domaine and she is run ragged, she would not survive if it was not for her sons and friends who help out.
Have a read of this article http://www.frenchentree.com/french-property/gite-b...

Keep taking advice... best of luck with it.

Cheers

A

Most french I know regard farm animals as food ! Only joking , at least the novelty farm would also provide you with an interest out of season as well as the in season attraction , and will keep you off the cheap wine , and that's no joke , I've seen a couple of people go down that route out of boredom .
Location is everything , I know one person that bought on price alone , he's burnt through the thick end of 500k and has an unfinished collection of ramshackle buildings in the middle of no where that aren't much use to anyone and now picks up odds and ends of work instead of living his dream of the rental complex .

I would be keen to know the details although I am not in a position to do anything until spring next year. Always happy to find out more about the actually experience from friendly brits....

Todays epic! My son is off to Blighty today for his admiralty interview for RN officer training. My wife booked his TGV/ Eurostar tickets online last week at a cost of 300 odd euros with a view to him picking them up at the station inAngouleme this morning. We duly arrive and make haste to the ticket office to retrieve said paid for tickets. He gives the sullen jobs worth behind the counter the reference number and shows her the email confirmation of payment etched on his phone, which she the duly retrieves on her system. She then asks for the card that was used to pay for the tickets, which of course we don't have as it is my wife's and she is in UK at present. When I explain this she flatly informs us that we can't have the tickets. I remonstrate saying that she can clearly see they are bought and paid for and we are simply here to collect them but she won't budge and assumes the classic French "Non!" Attitude that all contributors to this thread are so painfully familiar with. I try my card in the vain hope that maybe SWMBO had used it in making the purchase. No cigar! So I offer to pay again for the tickets and then worry about organising reimbursement for the originals afterwards, but no. Madame insists that as the purchase was made on a different card that is not possible, so I have to cough up 576 euros to buy new tickets under a new booking at last minute station prices as opposed to internet pre book prices! She could not have been more unhelpful and offered no suggestions as to how the situation could be rectified or any form of other arrangement and just stared at us both stonily during the whole process. I had to resist the urge to reach over the counter and grab her by her scrawny fking neck. My son is now marooned at Poitier and has missed his Eurostar connection due to some technical issue with the train, so will undoubtedly arrive in UK at some ungodly hour, nice and tired for his interview tomorrow! The problem with this place, as I pointed out to the miserable unhelpful bh, is because it is full of people like her! And breathe!

I am sorry that your son has to undergo such stress before an important interview such as this but, this issue of not having the booking credit card to pick up tickets would happen in most countries not just here in France.

We have had similar issues when we went to a cinema in the UK with prebooked tickets but not the same credit card and even the ferries demand the booking credit card before releasing tickets.

It depends. We had the same problem at Gare de Lyon when we realised that we'd received a new card and had cut up the old one that we used to buy the tickets (clearly says on the booking that you need to use the same card). The guy at the counter booked us onto the same trains as before at the same price though we had to pay then. We got a refund to our bank account for about 1/3 and SNCF vouchers for the rest of the original purchase price. SNCF's IT system isn't great as the booking had to be done over again.

We used cheques vacances for the "second" booking so we ended up saving money. Perhaps it depends on who you get and whether they're susceptible to you being nice to them??

I went into my local branch of Credit Agricole this morning to get some cash from the hole in the wall. It gave me €20s but I needed a €10 so I stupidly asked the cashier (misnomer or maybe Miss Nomer) for two tens for a twenty. "I'll have to wait for my colleague". Hmmm. A minute later said colleague emerged from behind the wall, looked at me stonily and said "non". I think she works part-time at Angouleme station. Anyway, I was in a bit of a rush so I just left. But this was a bank. And two cashiers.

You couldn't make it up.

Much like Russ, my gripe is with the way I'm dealt with. The whole customer service revolution that we had in the uk in the 90's has completely passed France by.... I'm not looking for deference or servility, just some empathy and a smile. Oh, and a very occasional "sorry", even insincere.

Sorry, forgot to mention, in case you think I am French bashing here I am not. It is simply my experience in comparison to other countries. My work takes me all over Europe, Scandinavia etc and in no other country do I experience an attitude as appalling as the French!