Buying a house in south of France
Discussion
Morning all, my mother currently lives in a lovely little village in the hills just outside of Nice but due to her age is now looking to come back to the UK where things are a bit more convenient. She has the property on the market however the estate agent appears to be rather useless (we can't see the property advertised on any UK sites).
It occurred to me that there might be an option whereby I could potentially buy the property from her to rent as an investment, and she'd still have money to buy here. I was originally going to top her up with £50k on top of her sale price to help her buy a house in the UK, but my thinking is that given the massive estate agent fees etc in France, by doing a private sale whereby I use the £50k as a deposit and get a mortgage to buy her place, she might actually get close to saving the £50k i.e. still have the same amount to spend in the UK as she would have if she sold to a 3rd party and I topped her up as planned. Her house is up for EUR400k (so ~£310k). This is it:
http://www.wretmanestate.com/en/buy/sale-village-h...
A few queries:
1) does this sound bonkers?!
2) will a UK bank lend to buy a foreign property easily?
3) how easy is it to rent a property in France out from another country?
4) is this the sort of house that will rent, or is it too big/doesn't provide a good percentage return?
I'm just trying to gauge possibilities initially.
ETA
Sorry not allowed, turn this thread into an advert and it will be removed.
It occurred to me that there might be an option whereby I could potentially buy the property from her to rent as an investment, and she'd still have money to buy here. I was originally going to top her up with £50k on top of her sale price to help her buy a house in the UK, but my thinking is that given the massive estate agent fees etc in France, by doing a private sale whereby I use the £50k as a deposit and get a mortgage to buy her place, she might actually get close to saving the £50k i.e. still have the same amount to spend in the UK as she would have if she sold to a 3rd party and I topped her up as planned. Her house is up for EUR400k (so ~£310k). This is it:
http://www.wretmanestate.com/en/buy/sale-village-h...
A few queries:
1) does this sound bonkers?!
2) will a UK bank lend to buy a foreign property easily?
3) how easy is it to rent a property in France out from another country?
4) is this the sort of house that will rent, or is it too big/doesn't provide a good percentage return?
I'm just trying to gauge possibilities initially.
ETA
Sorry not allowed, turn this thread into an advert and it will be removed.
Edited by Big Al. on Friday 16th January 17:21
)
anonymous said:
[redacted]
SA?It is actually a very nice house, probably one of the nicest in the village. You can't really take pics of the outside as it's down a narrow street and on the other side of the house the hill drops away. Inside is great, definitely characterful. Fireplace works and all. It does need a bathroom on the top floor which you could put in.
Thanks for the info. With regards to location, it's about 25 mins from the beach, and about 1.5 hours from skiing. The industrial estate is below the hill, about 700m vertically below and not in view so it's not an eyesore.
In terms of paying the mortgage, a quick calculation suggests that it would cost between £1200 (25 years) and £1800 (15 years) pcm, which even if there is not rental income is perfectly doable as I don't have a mortgage to pay here in the UK and already own a couple of places.
The 2 options would be:
1) try and rent it long term to French people and cover as much of the mortgage and upkeep as possible
2) try and rent it for holiday lets and use it as a holiday home occasionally ourselves and accept that it will likely cost us
With (1) I guess the question is whether there is a market for renting what is really quite a big place, and with (2) whether we'll get VFM in terms of it as a holiday home.
What worries me a bit is the possibility of it losing value and/or us being slapped with some extra taxes due to being foreign and a bit monied.
In terms of paying the mortgage, a quick calculation suggests that it would cost between £1200 (25 years) and £1800 (15 years) pcm, which even if there is not rental income is perfectly doable as I don't have a mortgage to pay here in the UK and already own a couple of places.
The 2 options would be:
1) try and rent it long term to French people and cover as much of the mortgage and upkeep as possible
2) try and rent it for holiday lets and use it as a holiday home occasionally ourselves and accept that it will likely cost us
With (1) I guess the question is whether there is a market for renting what is really quite a big place, and with (2) whether we'll get VFM in terms of it as a holiday home.
What worries me a bit is the possibility of it losing value and/or us being slapped with some extra taxes due to being foreign and a bit monied.
Thanks for the info. We've decided to go down a different route now. I'm just going to buy her a property here in the UK and she's going to sell up without any time pressure. The whole rental issue and zero rights thing really put us off, seems a wonder to me that people bother to rent properties out at all in France. Still, doesn't appear to be as bad as the Netherlands where apparently the local council (or similar) tells you what you're allowed to rent your place out for!!
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