A home set in majestic mountain scenery was the dream for Charles King, but could he find a suitable property in France for his extremely tight budget?
My challenge was to buy a house for £50,000. Was it possible? Was there anywhere where you could still do it? It’s the kind of adventure that might make for a daytime TV show.
I grew up in Ireland, but for a long time I’ve been trying to buy a home in Kent, where I’ve lived for 15 years. As a single, self-employed person, I was struggling to find properties I’d like to live in within my budget, and was finding the process somewhat disheartening.
In March 2019, after a holiday with friends in Spain in the village where they had bought a house some years earlier, I returned to the UK asking myself the question: was there anywhere left in Europe where I could still buy a property for the price of a deposit for a house in Kent?
I reasoned that even if I ended up spending many more years renting in Kent, I might at least own something that wouldn’t cost me a great deal of money in the meantime, and could eventually be a retirement property. I imagined working between the two countries and hopefully building a social life in the new location in preparation for eventually moving there full time. I began looking online with an initial budget of £30,000.
WHERE TO BUY?
In the aftermath of the financial crisis, there were cheap properties in my native Ireland but the market there had recovered sufficiently for my budget to be too small.
Ideally, I didn’t want to be too far away from the UK. While my trip to Spain had inspired the search, I’m not a huge fan of hot weather. I had a brief look online at Greek properties but again the heat was an issue and the distance from England considerable.
I searched listings in Italy where I found some very cheap properties, but I was worried that with my small budget, I might end up in an unsavoury neighbourhood and not realise until it was too late. I looked a little at Eastern Europe but struggled with my complete lack of knowledge of the languages on the websites and felt out of my depth with not knowing anything about the countries, let alone which areas might be suitable.
Then I started looking at France. I had initially assumed it would be more expensive than Spain and so was pleasantly surprised to find many properties available within my budget. I should mention that I have worked as an estate agent for many years and therefore h
