It can be difficult…we found our house on the internet after many fruitless trips to view stuff.
take heart… there are lots of empty properties… Le Bon Coin or simply " Maisons à Vendre (… region)" … in your search engine should bring up plenty …
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I think the answer to that is, very locally with an estate agent or notaire, and also online.
Properties are alo advertised privately online which saves on the fees. I bouht mine privately, saw it online and contacted the seller and took it from there. You don’t need an immo.
We also bought privately, having found the house through an online search that brought up their personal page/website. But overall it took us maybe 2 years to find what we wanted. We probably looked at hundreds and hundreds of properties on line. Made numerous trips to view properties - about a dozen at a time. And then finally found what we wanted.
Various online sites that are not estate agents per se, but which often contain properties for sale posted by estate agents, such as PAP, LeBonCoin, ParuVendu, SeLoger, but also the national association of estate agents (FNAIM) website.
Hi there,
We found our house with 1.5 acres on Greenacres. The estate agent was english and the notaire was excellent and could speak limited english. Our friend was google translate.
https://www.green-acres.fr/en?gclid=EAIaIQobChMIn4CGxcaS5wIVhrHtCh0ChwyqEAAYASAAEgKtyfD_BwE or
https://www.french-property.com/
Which is why renting first of all can help. Rest assured all of the comments here are positive - there just is a note of realism. French estate agents and people’s attitude to selling properties can be a real shock if you are coming from abroad. There’s a thread on that very topic somewhere here. Photos with dirty washing on the draining board, clothes drying in the lounge, no key to the property, or no power is all par for the course. I have photos of a wonderful large town house, no power, shuttered up so no light. I used flash to take photos in pitch black rooms with dark brown furniture and looked at them on my computer later.
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LOLthat is funny 
although as you say, about par for the course
A few years back I went to look at a farmhouse with a view to buying, only to be greeted by about 12 dogs all running and jumping up on me.
Luckily I like dogs and wasn’t wearing white at the time.
But the best was yet to come, chickens in the house and dog turds everywhere! Even one left on a bed upstairs (not unlike a chocolate on the pillow that you get in a hotel ) 
The estate agent nearly died from embarrassment, which made it actually quite funny watching him squirm. 
and no, I didn’t buy it.
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We did a fair bit of searching on the 'net and got quite good at “finding” properties on Google maps - sometimes what is not in the agent’s photo is more informative than what is. We ruled out more than one which was slap next to something very industrial.
A good idea. That is exactly what I do when looking for a holiday house. It’s worked for me (most of the time). Photos that don’t show the exterior and the surroundings usually mean they’re not very photogenic.
That would be the logical interpretation but not necessarily 
I was in two minds about even visiting this house because there was no photo of the outside! all interior shots. However the interior was so nice and I liked the location (not sure if you could get streetview in those days, at any rate I didn’t) and the price seemed OK, so I thought Hey ho, even if it’s not the prettiest house from the outside, it’s worth a look. So was surprised and delighted when it turned out to be chocolate box pretty, newly pimped columbage ! fancy not putting photos of that on the website. I asked the seller why he hadn’t and he just grunted and said it hadn’t occurred to him To be fair they are all columbage in this corner so it was probably nothing special to him.
We made half a dozen jaunts around Brittany before settling on the first location that we fell in love with, Saint Jacut de La Mer (25 mins drive west of St Malo). We looked at several houses online, viewed several in person at a number of other lovely locations (some amazing places needing a huge amount of renovation amongst them!). One memorable viewing included a dead dog in an outbuilding that my then 13 year old daughter spotted - somewhat off-putting! Great estate agent M Christophe Perrin at agence immobilière de la Presqu’île. Happy house hunting!
I agree that once you get a ‘feeling’ for a place, ‘un coup de coeur’, you have to follow it up. Glad it worked for you!
Hi I can highly recommend Beaux Villages ( not just because I work for them ) but they have an amazing team and really easy to use web site. And they are bi lingual
good luck
kind regards
Angela Grzywacz
Hi I can highly recommend Beaux Villages to
Take care with Leggets - they may not answer all your questions
Check that the immobilier displays their fee (a percentage of the price) .
Purchaser pays agents fee and compared to the UK the fee is large.
Negotiation of the price is essential. The property may be with more than one agent at different prices.
Above all research. There are other sources in addition to Survive France.
If refurbishment is required, establish availability of artisans PRIOR to signing the “compromis”
Hi I’ve sent an email , not heard back yet .
Thanks
K lough