France: We have a property!

Where to even start? How about a picture of where we’re going to live?

As to how we got here, that’s a longer tale….

Remote to in-person viewings

Now we were in the thick of identifying properties we were finding lots of potentially suitable ones and passing details on to Ibanista to do the introductions and arrange viewings.

We had an additional week of remote viewings that surfaced an apartment in Colmar (looking strong), and another in Turckheim (looking amazing). We’d also been told by Ibanista that some agencies won’t agree to remote viewings.

We were finding that the apartments we found tended to have very large living/dining room areas, but that these appeared to come at the expense of the size of the bedrooms. And this really became the tipping point; if we can’t be sure our bedroom furniture will fit in, how can we be sure we can live there comfortably? Natalie from Ibanista was also confirming that in-person means you get to ‘feel’ the area far more too.

We were due to head to Oxford that coming weekend, so a plan hatched; put Rachel on a train from Oxford to London (to avoid the awful Dorchester to Waterloo route) and get her out to Colmar via Eurostar/TGV in a day!

So before we knew it, Rachel was settled in a nice spot in Colmar having countless WhatsApp chats. She’d been equipped with a lazer measure for sizing up space for those viewings.

Colmar vs Strasbourg/Apartment vs house

We’d decided right at the start of our project that Colmar looked to be the right place for us, but to expand the pool of likely properties we needed more choices - hence our March trip to Strasbourg.

But Rachel’s reaction to being in Colmar and experiencing day-to-day living really brought it home. This was definitely the place for us to aim for as our ‘magnet city’, whether we could live in the city or just outside it.

As well as bedroom sizes being an issue, storage space was another (as we’re emptying out a 3-bed house to take with us) and suitable outside space for a cat. That started to create another decision point; in-city apartment with compromises on space, storage and outside space, or out-of-city house with compromises on local facilities and travel.

I’d put together a map of train stations leading to Colmar or Strasbourg to help us find places within an easy distance of either of them, which was helpful in ruling places in or out more quickly.

Rachel in Paris Colmar

Back to our local correspondent…

Having Rachel ready to spring into action and view properties felt like it should be a winning formula. But the reality was that the pace of the rental market meant that the number of days actually occupied with viewings was lower than we’d hoped.

Still, it did have a real impact on choices:

• Quartier Sud apartment - this was identified as a possibility before Rachel got to Colmar, and was one of our favoured areas. A stroll around the local streets before confirmed this. But the in-person experience was quite different; the property was older and hadn’t been well looked after. Not this one.
• Rue de Ladhof apartment - this was a real possibility with a ‘penthouse’ place that had a large terrasse. On the ground the area didn’t feel like ‘us’, and measuring the bedrooms confirmed that it wasn’t a fit as well.
• Turckheim house - we’d felt this one was worth checking out even though we had our doubts, and these were compounded by the viewing. It looked like a maintenance headache going forward and was pretty odd all round. No thanks. But the landlord was lovely and gave Rachel a lift back to Colmar in his car!
• Turckheim penthouse - this was the one we were really excited about, and it ticked every box. It was brand new (never lived in) and we’d formed a real bond with Turkheim with visits and research. A huge double garage, a massive terrasse, very modern kitchen - this was the one!

So while we continued to line up others to explore, we’d made our choice and were really excited.

Then we waited. And waited. No response from the lardlord for our chosen place.

Viewings dried up, despite all efforts (including in-person visits to estate agents), and Rachel was left with the tricky task of swanning around, having lunches and fine wine (the horror!).

With the prospect of a couple more viewings the following week, and the possibility of progressing the Turckheim apartment should we get the green light, Rachel extended her week’s stay to the following Wednesday, meaning she had to change to an aparthotel.

Finding Eguisheim

With so much downtime between viewings (and lunches) Rachel invested on some travelling to potential locations.

Traveling to Turckheim on the bus was easily done (with another lunch at the end) and a good chance to check out the Friday market. And another lunch, obviously.

But disappointing news came in about the apartment. Despite getting approved by the agents, the landlord had decided that her landlord insurance benefits of being underwritten by the Government were more valuable to her so we wouldn’t be eligible as that would require additional effort on her part. Even offering more money didn’t help. A real downer. We were back to lining up more viewings, but with a heavy heart.

We’d seen a property listed in Eguisheim that we were waiting on for a confirmed viewing, so Rachel also traveled there by rented bicycle (as it’s within easy reach of Colmar). So that’s where the photo above was taken. But no viewing could be arranged by Wednesday so any chance of viewing it in person was out of the window.

Once Rachel was back home we had a remote viewing lined up for Eguisheim, but didn’t really think we’d find it what we wanted. But the viewing was fantastic! A large sitting/dining room, a huge garage, a basement with 3 large rooms, and a main bedroom with built-in wardrobes and enough space to live comfortably. We were definitely interested. Did I mention fibre broadband already there and running? And a small cat-friendly garden?

What also struck us about the place was the obvious care and maintenance by the landlord. We later found out his mother had lived there and looked after the gîte on the upper floor. We did have some concerns about the kitchen, and the lack of a bath in the bathroom, but we took the decision that we could make those things work for us given the other advantages of the property.

Being honest

Is it our dream house in our dream location?

No, but it’s certainly 2nd in all the places we managed to find. As we found with Dorset when looking to move down, the supply of property isn’t endless, so at some point you need to make a decision.

A certain amount of fatigue and stress had crept in for us more lately, with concerns about the prospect of jeopardising our house sale and the despair of checking out listing after listing only to be disappointed. It feels worth taking the plunge rather than waiting and hoping for the perfect place which might never come.

A meeting with Ben at Ibanista felt like hearing some hard truths too. Apartments in Colmar were there, but to achieve living there we’d need to downsize and make do with less space when renting. After living in a tiny ‘two up, two down’ house in Oxford for many years we don’t feel ready to go back to that style of shoebox living.

And here’s the thing; it isn’t meant to be a ‘forever home’ - it’s our way into France that helps us get established, start our new life, explore the area, have fun and maybe find that perfect place in doing so. Moving within France is far easier than moving to France, and we only need to give 3 months notice if we did want to move. It may sound like planning for failure, but everything about this project has been about realism rather than chasing unrealistic dreams.

On the flip side, Eguisheim has a lot going for it. It’s within cycling distance to Colmar, has a decent bus service, really good restaurants in the old town, somewhere really pretty to live amongst the vines and shopping just minutes away. A pattisserie within walking distance too, as well as a microbrewery. It’s gonna be fun getting to know it better.

Financial adviser report

I’m not going to write much about this, but our (very) long awaited advice on finances came through minutes before a feedback meeting with them and it was very disappointing. We didn’t get a sense of an overall strategy towards our goals, some of the information was wrong (or contradicted what we’d previously been advised) and there was nothing about post-move to France.

I’ve fired back some thoughts so we’ll see what comes from that, but it does feel like money down the drain for not very much useful info.