Our property that we purchased back in 2006 came with 3,300 square meters of land that I believe was re-zoned for urban use (we are currently checking this out), when I retire in a little about 3 years time I will be getting a bit of a pension pot lump sum. One of the things I am considering is investing some in to building a two bedroom single floor home at the bottom end of the garden to be rented out to provide extra monthly income.
We are in the Aude near Castelnaudary and wondered if anyone had some advise on things like:
I have no experience of what you’re asking but I wonder how easy it will be to discuss this from a distance. For the building part I would be talking to a maître d’oeuvre and a builder to start with. Price will obviously depend on the standard of build that you want and local prices.
Some architects offer ‘off the page’ builds that you could look at, bearing in mind that you may need to run utilities to the new build.
There are lots of threads here on building so you could read some of those to get an idea.
Thanks for that Jennifer, we have an architect already who is in the process of confirming the documentation for the urban zoning for the land. We have also spoken to a builder who gave us a rough round house figure which seemed do-able. We will be back in France in May and will be catching up with them again as a follow up.
I will definitely trawl through previous postings for any useful nuggets of info!
Is there anything else you can tell us about your project so far, please? It would be easier for us than answering questions you already have answers to.
Hi Jennifer am looking at spending around 150k in euros for a two bedroom home - has anyone done something similar, how long did it take once the architect had drawn up his plans?
The utilities shouldn’t be a big head ache as we did all this to connect our current house, connections for mains electricity and water are just in front of our gate. Waste water will go into a fosse septique.
The back end of the garden has it’s own access route so no issues there.
The main thing is whether the return would be good compared to the investment.
The only person on here that I know has had a new build done is @graham , but he hasn’t posted in about 3 years, although he was seen last August. That would have been some time ago though, and norms have changed a lot over the years. You need to look at the RE2020 building code, which I think is the latest in force.
Edit: the RE2020 code was tightened last year it seems and will tighten further in 2028
Thanks for that Hairbear, good to know, had a quick google already so will be a bit more informed when it comes to talking to the architect and builder. Looks like an aerothermie air/air heat pump might be the most cost effective with perhaps a small wood burner in the living room.
This may, or may not, be of any use to you. I have a similar but smaller plot at the rear of my French house with separate access from the rear.
If I wanted to build a house, I would not build it there.
My commune is selling serviced sites for less than it would cost me to run services from the front of my house to the site at the rear.
But I would have to think very carefully before building a rental property as an investment. The law appears to be heavily weighted in favour of tenants and I have heard several horror stories about tenants not paying rent and taking a lot of expensive court time to get them evicted etc etc.
I’m sure you’ve already spoken to estate agents in your area regarding demand and expected rents.
And you will have, I guess, already looked at the tax implications, insurance for a rental etc. and any other outgoings to determine the true return on your investment.
Note also that property prices in France do not seem to appreciate as quickly or as consistently as they have, in the past, in the UK.
A new build will, of course, be very attractive to potential renters as it should be economical to heat etc and should require minimal maintenance from you.
It might also be worth enquiring what grants (if any) are available for a passivhaus-type house with green technology (heat pumps/solar etc).
There will be others on here who have more experience in this area and will no doubt give you more useful input.
Good luck with your project ! And perhaps come back in the future to let us know how it goes
Ground source heat pumps with underfloor heating and cooling are a lot more efficient (we have this), but where you are doesn’t get very cold winters and they are more expensive and you’ll need 3 times the house area to lay the pipes. Also @Mike313 makes some very good points about using a home as an investment, especially as a rental, but as you already have the land then that may work out OK for you.
Thanks for that Mike, the back garden is huge and beyond our needs. I hear you on the tenant side of things but I would probably approach the sous officiers mess at the local regiment (4RE) and rent it to someone there - its not the type of organisation that appreciates bad debtors in their ranks.
A lot of the outgoings are tax deductible from what I understand, if I could get 800 a month from a 150k investment that comes out as nearly 6.5% return annually which is not too shabby for an investment that should keep in line with inflation and not vulnerable to swings on the stock exchange.
I’ve recently worked on a project for local government here in Burgundy, on new build social housing costs, they shouldn’t differ much elsewhere. Depending on materials / types of heating used etc you’ll be looking at from low speck +/- 1600€/m² to high spec 3000€/m² and above.
I haven’t done the math but that does sound pretty reasonable
Maybe make enquiries at the caserne, I’m not sure how many potential renters you might have there. The bulk of the personnel are recruits being trained up as legionnaires at ‘the Farm’, they all live in barracks and the core permanent staff of sous-officers is pretty small in number. But it’s something you could check out in advance. The 4RE is the 4th Foreign Legion Regiment but I‘m sure you know that.
There’s tax deductible and tax deductible as not everything is accepted. You also have to factor in things like social charges as well as insurances, obligatory maintenance and so on. Do your sums as it won’t be 6.5% return. And if you sell a lot will be clawed back. We got around 4% and were happy with that.
Our 120m2 virtually new build (only had 3 exterior walls and not much else) was over €150k 10 years ago - but v high spec.
In terms of security there is a difference in France between furnished and unfurnished homes. Furnished is 1 yr rental contracts, but beware they roll-over automatically (as do unfurnished) and if you don’t like a tenant there are only narrow reasons for giving notice. Basically if you put it on the market or if you want to occupy it yourself/close family members as maison principal.
And do you want strangers at the bottom of your garden?
Check also that things like your fosse has capacity for more.
In this commune this practice was banned because people were building a second dwelling on their land but all had to use the same access which came to problems when one lot wanted to sell. This lotissement has been designated co-propriété so two independent dwellings have been built with individual access but the two owners have rights over each other’s land only to do maintenance and thus stopped the previous large parcel practice of building more dwellings on same site and causing untold legal headaches for all involved including the Mairie
May sound daft but are any of your French neighbours doing anything similar? Can be a good hint as to commercial viability.
Things to think about apart from permits:
obviously occupancy why choose you if there is other stuff in the area? May be wise not to assume 100% in the sums/yield.
costs - probably less surprises in a new build but for sure allow a large contingency. I am a pretty conservative planner and did line up estimates but still ended up with a large over run in our house rebuild part of which were material costs going through the roof
gains on sale…very different market to the uk so dont mentally factor in capital gains. You may even make a loss.
tax… its france so have a good google. Assuming unfurnished rental typically if the gross rent is under 15000 per year its simple and you get a 30% reduction for costs so are taxed on 70% of the rent…above this you have to use regime reel and its more complex. Also if you do sell and make a gain on sale its not your main house so tax and social charges on gains may be heavy and it takes a long time to taper off.
Yeah I was back there in basic training in ‘89 and again at the CIC in ‘92, I think they have sold off the farms I used to march to “La Jasse” every week and then back for the weekend, its the main training establishment for the Legion for a very broad range of internal training needs. As regiments go it’s pretty big especially when it comes to the number of sous officiers, you have the encadrement for the training of recruits and then you have the encadrement for the CIC (Compagnie d’Instruction des Cadres), you also have all of the training personnel for technical qualifications in admin, HGV, radio/comms equipment, mechanics and hydraulics specialists, catering etc….. And then on top of that you have the guys who keep the whole regiment that keep this huge regiment ticking over in admin, Service General, the Chef de Corps staff, the armory, mechanics bay 2eme echalon and 3eme echelon etc etc.
I would be a fully signed up member of the Amicale by then and will be attending various functions at the regiment so would have a bit of an in when it comes to speaking to someone at the mess des sous officiers.
It’s not really the same scenario here, this is the view of the back garden, lots of wide open space and there is a dedicated track on the right hand side
