Our dream started at our garden back home in the Netherlands and led us to take our three camper vans down south to the Guadalest valley in Spain. This trip was an important step in envisioning our permaculture dream. We have covered this trip in our previous article. This trip down to Spain made us continue our journey the next year. This time we would visit eleven different properties and houses in France. And with success, at the end of our trip we made an offer on three different properties and went through with the one of our dreams. In this article you will find out how we did it and I have included 10 important tips that will help you find your dream property too.
Tip 1: It all starts with a vision.
It helped us a lot that not long after our Spain trip the four of us started living together. This gave us the opportunity to have a lot of conversations at the dinner table about our permaculture dream and what it was that we wanted. Of course we knew that we needed experience to find out precisely what it was that we wanted. We knew we needed to unite our dreams and form a collective one. It was important for us that our friends and family could easily visit us. This was one of the reasons Spain was a no go for us and made France a good option. We wanted to live close to nature and this we needed to feel when we made our visits. Then we decided on what our minimum land space was going to be. We decided on 20 000m2, this is more than enough to grow our own food but we wanted to have enough space to give back to nature. We wanted to have a building on the property, an old house or barn that we could convert to communal space. Of course you need to get your finances in order so you know how high your offers can be. You can always go below the price so you can widen your search filter a little bit. Now the google property search could begin.
Tip 2: Enjoy the online property search
I mention enjoying the online search because it isn’t really useful to spend hours searching the internet for houses if you don’t have a date for your visit yet. The market moves crazy fast and most properties are only for sale for a short time. It can be useful to search before you have a date because this gives you an idea of what your opportunities are with your budget. It is also very nice to feel that fire of passion burning inside your heart, this gives you the motivation to go through with your beautiful dream. I myself started long before we set a date and enjoyed it very much. Sites I used were: Leggett, French property, Leboncoin and a lot of smaller french immobilier pages.
Tip 3: Plan your trip
Setting a date for your visit is key in finding your property. Like mentioned before the properties are only online for a short while so in the weeks before you can really plan your road trip and mark your stops on the map.
Tip 4: Don’t be shy
It helps to make contact with real estate agents, they can often have more information on a property that is available on the website and they can help you to find similar properties. We wanted to create a communal space on our land so we needed a house, an old barn or we wanted to build something from scratch. After speaking with multiple estate agents we found out that that last option would be almost impossible on farm land. This made us remove a lot of cheap pieces of land from our potential visit list. Most of the agents are really nice but don’t trust them blindly, there were many occasions where an agent told us our wishes were too specific and that there was no way we would find something like that. We proved them all wrong in the end.
So in the weeks before our trip we found about 8 different properties. Some of them got sold before we had the chance to visit them. We did find a few new ones just days before we left for France. We were now ready to plan our stops and make a map.
Tip 5: Meet like-minded people
While visiting Spain a year before we made a stop at a great couple that followed their own dream in the mountains near Valderrobres. This was a big success so we decided we would visit some more like-minded people to hopefully get inspired and learn something. We had contact with a few people on facebook and instagram and eventually added two inspirational destinations on our roadmap. This completed our map and we were ready to go.
So now we’re ready to go, one quick harvest at our garden and off we went. When I turned the key to start our van, it made a weird noise and did not start. Oh my… we needed to call the road services to make it start again.It was a problem with the dynamo and we needed to visit our garage. We were super lucky that our mechanic could look at it the next day because after we explained our situation. We thanked him a million times and surprised them with a pie from our local bakery. It was a great fortune that we only had one day delay. We compensated it with a couple of extra hours driving to make it in time at our first stop.
We arrived at Edwin and Desiree’s place on Sunday. A dutch couple that we met online in a permaculture facebook group. We were welcomed with open arms and they were happy to show us around their property. They had bought their house a couple of years earlier and renovated it by themselves. They lived there a couple of months of the year and had great plans to include permaculture systems on their property. They were really enthusiastic about our plans to make the move to France and gave us a lot of confidence to start our search. They told us that they would highly recommend an advisor, they called him Sjoerd and he had helped them with all the french paperwork and a lot more. We saved his contact on our phone in case we might need him. We had two great nights full of good conversations and one day of useful work on their land before we went on to our first stop. This first stop was one we will never forget. We would later call this property the land of the oak.
Tip 6: Visit as much as you can
Our first visit was to an old house and barn in the Creuse district of central France. We found it on the French property website and this took us to a local real estate agent. We were early, about half an hour and we decided we would take a look before the agent would arrive. Oh my god, we could not believe our eyes. An old barn, old house, pretty romantic but not too special but we walked a bit further and then we saw the field. The beauty of it mesmerized the four of us. A majestic oak tree surrounded by a field of little flowers and butterflies. We were all excited, also because the price of this 2 hectare property was only 58.000 euros. We went back to the gate to meet up with the real estate agent. He could not speak English but he showed us the inside of the barn and the house. Yes it was a lot of work but it did not matter we were enchanted by that oak tree. We could not believe that it was all going so fast. What are the odds that the first property you visit is the one of your dreams. This certainly felt like it. We needed to think about it but we told the agent we wanted to make an offer and we would let him know as soon as possible. We parked our vans, Khymo pitched his tent and talked about what just had happened. We wanted to make an offer but maybe we needed to know some more things about the property before we made this big step. We felt like we needed some advice.
Later the next day we decided to call the estate agent anyway to make an offer. He was hard to reach but after a few tries we got a hold of him. Then we got shocked! The land of the oak got sold! A couple that visited the property after us the same day immediately accepted the asking price. We all felt down at first, but it didn’t take long before we recognized what this visit had done for us. It showed how motivated we all were to find this thing. One thing we knew for certain we would not let another perfect property slip away. So we decided to call Sjoerd.
Tip 7: Think about getting yourself an advisor.
Sjoerd was recommended by Desiree and Edwin, they told us about all the things he had done for them when they were trying to buy their house in France. We spoke to him on the phone and we were convinced he would be worth the money. So we decided to put our money where our mouth is and take this big step. It felt great, we were really going to do this thing. Sjoerd would take care of all the paperwork for us, advise us on a lot of matters like local laws and legislation and a lot more. He could help us find properties. We would have access to his services until one year after we bought our property. Now we knew we could make a completely informed decision.
We had three more properties in central France in the Limousine district. The first two were not what we were looking for, this we felt right away. But our efforts were not in vain because we learned about what we did not want and that we could rely on our “gut feeling” to guide us. The last one was pretty impressive, it was a 11 hectare property with a barn. We felt excited about the possibilities of a 11 hectare property but felt it would be too much for us, also the location was not ideal for us and we would not have enough money to convert the barn into a proper communal space. So we decided to go further down south towards Dordogne.
Our next visit would be at La Rochebeaucourt-et-Argentine. We found this pretty property surrounded by forest in what used to belong to a big chateau. We loved it, surrounded by nature with a natural spring and a hidden cave. Also the little town was really nice and full of opportunities. There was one downside, it was protected land and nobody was allowed to build on it. You could only live in a tiny house and building another one would be hard. Still we were really enthusiastic. We contacted Sjoerd and he told us that the price was very high for a piece of land that was protected like this, so we decided to move on.
Or next stop would be Le moulin Scalangrand, this was the permaculture and chambre d’hote of Frederique. We had also found her on a permaculture facebook group and were very happy to stop by. She bought an old watermill in 2017 and made it work again. She had a pretty garden and was growing all of her own food for about a year now. Her place was so inspiring for us because she did a lot of things we were dreaming about. She had a really nice natural swimming pool that we had to keep in mind when we would make our design. She also had chickens, pigs in her forest and a cute dog named Pablo. We ate together with her, her daughter and boyfriend and her guests. We played music and talked until midnight and had a great time. We hope they will visit our place one day.
We visited two more properties in this area. Prices in this district were higher due to its popularity among tourists and the soft winters. The first house was a no go, pretty surroundings but the two buildings that were on the property were completely degraded. I think it would be easier to take down and start from scratch than to renovate. The second property was quite interesting, the 4 hectare of forest and an existing vegetable garden made it a serious option but the roof of the house was not good. The roof was so bad you could see through it and the size made it too expensive to fix. Now we ran into a serious problem. Except for one property in Normandy planned for the end of our trip, we now ran out of properties to visit!
Tip 8: Don’t give up!
Keep in mind that we had already felt the energy from the property with the oak on our first visit. We knew our dream property was out there somewhere. We went to a small coffee shop to make contact with Sjoerd to tell him we just ran out of properties to visit. He tipped us on the website Leboncoin. On this site people sold their houses without the help of an estate agent. This helped us a lot because we now had access to a big amount of houses that we hadn’t come across online before. That same morning we called about six different new houses that were on there and some of them answered the phone. We planned to visit 4 new properties that were on the way to our last visit in normandy. We hadded of to the first one right away.
Tip 9: Just make an offer.
The first one of our list of new properties to visit was back in the Limousin area near Edwin and Desiree and near to the beloved oak so our hopes were high. On paper this property was looking very promising. Even though we found the property on Leboncoin, it was still being sold by an estate agent. We met with him in a nearby town and followed him to the property. The drive way immediately stood out with a nice staircase with pretty plants and trees. The house was also an eye-catcher, it was renovated quite recently. The land was pretty with a lot of height differences to it. A little orchard with apple and peach trees and two quite degraded fields that had a lot of rocks in the soil. The fields and orchard were divided with trees and a stroke of immense rocks that we could only see the top of. A working well was located on the south side of the property, this was a big advantage because it could get pretty dry in summer in this area of France. Then we entered the house, it was currently under construction and the agent told us that the previous owner had died so he could not finish his build. It looked amazing, the kitchen was already done and the other rooms were set up with strong wooden beams. It all looked very good. Khymo, Sander and myself were very excited. Amber did not feel it right away and this worried us a bit but we all saw all the possibilities to start our permaculture dream here so we decided to make an offer. This time with the help of Sjoerd. The reason we decided to make an offer, without Amber being a hundred percent convinced, was that our adviser had told us that you could always cancel your offer for quite a long period after you made it. He told us that the buyer was protected in this part of the process and wouldn’t have to make extra cost if he would decide to cancel.
We decided to stay another night at our new friends Edwin and Desiree, they were so excited that we would basically become neighbors and we had an amazing night around the fire. The next day we would visit the property again to look if Amber could get a feel for the place as well. Khymo and Sander wanted to spend the morning resting but Edwin and Desiree were very happy to join us that day. It started raining really hard and I found some building trash on one of the fields that worried me. Edwin and Desiree liked the property very much, really worth your money they said. And that was true, such a good house with this amount of land for this price was something we were very aware of but maybe this blinded our gut feeling. Amber was not blinded by this and was still not convinced. Then we got a phone call from Sjoerd. Our offer got accepted! We would still visit the remaining properties but we knew that our search was successful and we found a place where our dreams could be manifested.
Now we were headed to a house with a big pond on its property and looking back on it this house was looking too good to be true. We had contact with its owner again on Leboncoin and we discussed our visit. I was driving when I got a feeling that something was not right so I decided to call the owner again. Yes, something was not right. I found out that the man wanted to sell the house but the key would be transferred after the owner had died. We did have to pay the amount right away of course so this was a no go.
Normandy
We were now hadding up to our last few visits of the trip. We were very excited because of our accepted offer in the Limousin and we now had something to compare the properties with. Normandy felt really nice, a bit rough in comparison to other places we had seen but I liked this a lot. Khymo and I went to Ireland about eight years earlier and it felt a bit like that.
First off was a house that was also on Leboncoin. It looked like it was squated for a period, it had broken windows and smelled a little funny. The nature surrounding the property was super nice and we decided to go for a walk there. Then we walked up to this church. It was huge. It turned out that this town called Pontmain was some kind of pelgrims hotspot and that thousands of Christians visited the place every year. I was amazed at first but at the end this creeped us out a little. We decided this was not a good option and moved on. We had a great amount of laughs though. The next day we would meet up with an estate agent called Rebecca, we found a few nice properties she was selling in Normandy and made contact with her before we started our trip in France. We initially planned to visit only one of her properties but added two more the moment we ran out of properties. The first one we visited with her was a beautiful old stone building. Built with big stone blocks and it looked very old and Rebecca told us she could tell by the fireplace that the house was at least five hundred years old. One big downside, it was completely surrounded by cornfields. This was something that was a no go! Because we were aware of all the toxic chemicals and fertilizers they use on corn fields like this. On to the next.
Up next one was also really nice, two big houses, one old one and a newer one. The property had an old bakery and a well. But again the same problem, surrounded by those stupid monoculture cornfields. So again a no go for us. Some small extra tips: try to avoid these big monoculture fields, because most of the time they spray pesticides. These pesticides can have a negative influence on your health. Definitely spend some time exploring the area, surrounding fields, but also nice hotspots like natural parks or small towns.
Tip 10 : Keep your heart open till your last visit
We felt like we were not going to find anything in Normandy and it even crossed our minds to skip the last visit but decided we still wanted to see it. We followed Rebecca and passed some more cornfields, all of a sudden we noticed that the landscape was slowly changing, the crop fields turned to pastures with trees and forested areas. After driving through this beautiful landscape Amber said: please go right on to a small road and let the property be here. And this was exactly what happened. We stopped at an old house surrounded by nature that a few minutes ago we praised for its beauty. First we decided to take a look at the land, we were completely mesmerized by the beauty of the view. Holy shit, we already had an accepted offer but this feeling could not be denied. Let’s take a look at the buildings and keep our heads cool.
The main house was partly renovated, a new roof, insulation and the dry walls were done and parts of plumbing and electricity was also done. Next to this building was the old house that was in pretty bad condition but the walls and roof were still good. This property also had a detached barn and twenty-four cider-apple trees. This property was the one of our dreams and now Amber was convinced as well! We told Rebecca we wanted to make an offer right away! Our offer got accepted a few days later. At that time we did not know a lot about the district we were going to live in, later we read about all the nice places that are close to our property. It still took a really long time before we could sign our final signature. We visited the area before that happend to see all those amazing spots. This might be nice for a future article. In the end, who would have thought that we had to cancel our first offer and that we would end up finding our future home in such a beautiful way?! Our biggest lesson, trust your intuition and follow your heart.
Written by Tijn van Aelst.
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