Hello all.
My first ever thread. eek !
I turn 55 this year and am lucky enough to have a small company pension, some savings, a small house in the UK and a modest lifestyle so should be in a position to retire to France in 5 years' time - even with having to pay health insurance for 6 years.
This is 5 years on from when my retirement project first emerged (company email about "easing into retirement" ), but I fell in love with France in my teens and have always had French colleagues etc ...I love the Atlantic ocean and am fairly fit (daily cyclist), so proximity to a beach has been a priority for swimming and quite likely sea Kayaking too. I'm also a frustrated gardener lacking the space to grow my own veggies as well as sub-tropical plants.
The project has scaled-down a lot from the initial "back to the land" and moving to something more suited to a retiree.
As I live alone in a city (Bristol) and work for a large and friendly company, I'm conscious of how dependant I am on casual human contact, and I have to acknowledge that I am getting older so am checking out proximity of shops and doctors and even topography (I hold out the hope that I will be able to manage without motorised transport once established - though my bicycle will probably acquire an electric motor).
My current target town is now Plouhinec in the far south west of Finistère - a couple of miles from Audierne and Pont Croix - with several supermarkets in the area and plenty of doctors etc.
The nearest city - Quimper - is inconveniently far at 20 miles away (speaking as one who dislikes driving).
So I'm quite likely to be looking at a recently built house of the kind often used as a second home or for holiday lets, and house prices generally seem amazingly low to someone living in the UK.
Doubtless there will be lots more questions as time goes on, but my first one is whether these houses are flawed (I'm guessing poor insulation will be the first issue, but I live in a Victorian terrace in the UK).