Hello, I’m female, 65, newly retired and hoping to move to France this year from the Boston area. I have a trip planned next month with my daughter and would like to scout (less expensive) coastal towns mainly in Brittany but also Normandy - preferably not too far from amenities. I’ve been looking at Green-acres, Seloger, Belles Demeures de Bretagne, Leggett. I’d like to be within 20 minutes max of the coast though with at least 8000 square meters of land (for dog and gardening). If anyone has any recommendations about locations or advice about how to work with realtors on this trip, I’d be extremely grateful! Also grateful for any information on the buying process as I understand it can take months(?). As for math, I’ve netted out what I’ll get for my place here, deducted anticipated moving expenses, the notaire percentage (8%), converted to Euros, then deducted some funds for gardening and home repairs and new furniture - have I missed anything? Many thanks! Christi (ps am working on my French - currently B1). Also - apologies if I’ve done anything incorrectly here!)
Welcome!..you will do just fine and others here will advise you extremely well!..( I live in the South)
Bienvenue !
Sometimes get the impression that most SFers live in Brittany or Normandy (I’m not one of them) so I’m sure you won’t lack helpful advice.
There’s usually a reason some towns are less expensive! No services, employment or amenities. Also beware that some of the coastal towns have higher percentages of 2nd homes so are rather dead in winter.
Please look at your location criteria before you get charmed by a house. But there are some lovely ones so hard to turn away. We are currently planning a move up there from the east where we’ve been for a long while so have been tussling with maps of weather, geology, income, bus routes, and results of last elections, and numbers of doctors and so on. And when that gets dull we play with this site
And cost in a car, they are expensive here.
I lived in Finistère for 30 years so have plenty of knowledge about most of the region, Brest being the city I used to go to most of all, living a bit north of it. I lived five mins from the beaches and that made a difference to the value of my house when I sold three years to move south. Be warned that Brittany is damp, not good if you have arthritis or rheumatics and I have found that one wrist that used to give me gip along with a knee in damp weather has totally gone now living in a dryer and warmer region. If you find a townyou like, maybe ask some questions but its a big region and differences everywhere within a few miles.
8,000 square metres of land is a huge garden. I have about half of that and for the next couple of months keeping it all under control will feel like a full time job. Brittany and Normandy are both lovely areas but the coastline changes quite a lot as you go from west to east. It’s worth spending some time in the region before committing to a property and I would recommend having a trip further south, the climate changes quite quickly to become warmer and drier.
Welcome!
I really don’t think you’ll find a house with almost a hectare of land on the coast. You’d need to look a fair bit inland for that size of land. As @David_M_Matthews suggests, unless you’re used to managing that size of garden in a land where grass grows as rain falls - there’s a reason Normandy is so green - I’d think twice.
We are very fond of Fécamp and Berck - working French seaside towns with largely French tourism.
Dieppe is rather more elegant.
Inland from both, you’ll find pretty villages. The risk is that you’ll buy in a dying village and be unable to sell.
Fortunately there are a few indicators to show a village isn’t on its way out. The presence of a bakery is one.
Leggett have the reputation of charging premium prices because they are used by foreigners.
There is lots of information here on SF about buying houses so have a dig around! I found that using sites like SeLiger and Leboncoin gave me leads to local immobiliers, and I could then look on their websites (I sometimes have the impression that the hard-to-sell properties get advertised on the aggregator sites).
We recently went through the buying process so I’ve posted info already.
Feel free to add more detail about budget, for example.
Also (I don’t know anything about Boston) but what’s your weather like at the moment? Do you get plenty of rain? If you’re looking for more sun, bear in mind that one of the ways the French like to divide the country meteorologically is by using the Loire. North means wetter (cider country); south of the Loire is warmer and wine country.
As OP is american I automatically read this as sq feet! 80000 would make a reasonable 1000m2 garden
Thanks so much - this is helpful information!
Thank you - good information - thank you for the tip on the bakeries! I will look for your posts on buying process. Fecamp is on my list, will also explore Berck and also look a bit further south along the coast than I had originally planned as well. I grew up in Seattle, so am used to rain. Boston is too cold in the winter and too hot/humid in the summer - so it’s not too hard to improve on that (?). I’m looking for somewhere that has the chill hours necessary for peonies (500-1000 hours between temperatures of 32-40 degrees Fahrenheit/0-4 degrees C. though I’d also like to be able to get to Cork, Ireland fairly easily since my daughter and her family will be there. Thank you again!
I would like to find an 8000 square meter property (2 acres). I’ve lived on 1+ and 2.5 acre properties before so know what I’m in for!
That’s good - just sometimes things get lost in translation!
You may find a resource like this useful: https://www.climatestotravel.com/climate/france/le-havre
Ages ago, on another computer, I bookmarked something much better - it showed hours of sun and lots of other info - lost!
That should be straightforward. Since Brexit ferry routes between France and Ireland have multiplied and Ryanair has lots of Ireland France routes.