Moving to France - running gîtes business?

[2023Vision]

Know this has been done a lot on here but would appreciate any experience/ advice as we as in the middle of trying to decide what to do.,

Background: one DC9.,DH = French citizen and has lived with us in GB 20 years now. He is one driving the move as fed up of commute, crazy long working hours mainly and wants a change of life. We are both happy in UK overall but kind of fed up of daily routine. I speak French fluently (with accent and somewhat shy with strangers) and am Francophile. Am 40% for the move right now.

DD doesn’t know we are thinking about this yet as we are worried about unsettling her and then not going back though with it potentially. Did a visit to France and looked at 6 properties last week, all had potential. Looked into schools in each area a bit too. Some better than others - looking at South/Southwest. Our house here would need to be sold to finance the move. DH has family/ friends in France but not in that region.

Ahhh, wish I had a crystal ball!

Would you be taking over an established business, or starting from scratch doing building conversion etc?
Have you any experience of running a business, dealing with staff etc? Or any practical experience of working in hospitality section yourselves?
Have you had a look at what your competitors in the area are offering and charging?

I live in sw France.

You need to have a very positive attitude and a love of bureaucracy to run a business here.
We're lucky as we're retired on a pension.

You dc will find the schools stricter.
Tax is charged on turnover.
It's not easy to make money on a gite. Some tourists are nightmares and will cost you more in problems than you make.

When buying a property carefully chk surrounding land and any plans, its no fun if your guests are woken by dogs, kids on scrambler bikes etc.
Also chk for subsidence, we suffered this year.

Join every fb group you can.
Strictly legal
Strictly sante
Strictly fiscal
Ladies in france together

Also Google survive france.

And good luck

We ran a gite business for 19 years. Sold up at the end of 2021.

My first piece of advice would be don't do it.

Move to France and get a job instead.

In order to make a living you need to run year round which means that you don't get weekends or holidays. And then you need somehow to attract people year round.

You need to have enough money behind you to not need a loan or mortgage because trying to cover that gets very hard in the winter months.

You also need enough money to keep up with maintenance. Not to mention paying the taxes and energy costs.

I could go on.

Don't most of the couples who do this on tv programmes who font have huge amounts of stress, have a) a huge amount of money, to start with, and b) another income stream, ie they do online consulting aswell, to bring in money when trade is low?

I used to run a holiday Lettings business in another European country. I rarely saw my clients but even then, some drove me mad. Living onsite with them would have been a nightmare.

Also, you might have a nice house, pool, grounds, but you won’t be able to enjoy that pool for most of the summer, I know from others that that’s not fun.

Bureaucracy was bad here, and getting worse, and the listing sites you advertise on are increasingly greedy and controlling.

I had enough and gave up around 4 years ago

Thank you for replying - very much appreciated. All negative which is useful for us to see this side. Maybe we do have rose-tinted spectacles about it. We definitely would need a top-up mortgage. We would probably be able to work alongside and that would be the plan. I am a teacher and DH could do consulting work potentially but we kind of wanted a different life. The idea was to be together, even if working a lot and not with a lot of money as atm, DH is out of house around 15 hours every week day.

We are hard workers and willing to put the work in but from what you are saying, it might not be worth it.

Would take over an established business probably as we think this would be easier. Absolutely no experience in hospitality at all but fast learners! 😆😬
My DH is very very organised and motivated and has done a lot of research into finance, surrounding areas and gîtes etc… he has talked to quite a few people in the industry. I feel confident that he would be a massive asset as he is so ‘dynamique’ and proactive. I am pretty organised too but would use soft skills more such as communicating with people, marketing, cleaning and decorating etc… I know we are very green and we are aware of this. Maybe just a pipe dream but how do others get into it at first? We would like to do it on the next few years before we lose this energy!! 🙂

Worth checking with banks if they would be prepared to give a mortgage on a gite business.

Our bank had put a stop on any lending to gite businesses back in 2018 and that was pre-covid. Since COVID put even more out of business I would be surprised if they would lend now.

Which area are you looking at?

Thank you, that’s good to be aware of. We have been talking to our bank manager in France (as we used to own a small property in France, we still have an account with them) and in theory, they have agreed to lend but we would have to produce a business plan for them once we have the property in mind so it could be too risky for them. Also had initial conversations with an accountant in France and a courtier - not sure this is right word (broker??) So, in theory at least may be feasible. Very very early stages though.
Atm, looking at South/Southwest region. But open to others. Search may take a while.

The Strawbridges are selling their château near St Maixent l'École which has several established business including tea room and English food shop. There was an article in a Nottinghamshire paper comparing house prices.
Most people need other income to top up a gîte business. Some people make money, some don't.

Do not buy a business that is reliant on the English market. You need to be targeting the French in particular the weekend market.

Do not consider anything with a turnover of less than 100k. Assume half will disappear in running costs and half of what is left will go in taxes and cotisations.

Another factor is the age of your DD. Fires are usually (semi) rural. She'll be going into teenage years by the time this really gets going. Is she going to enjoy moving abroad, new school and friends..and needing to be driven everywhere? Maybe she's really horsey or something now and you live rurally so there's no future option of taking public transport anyway as she gets more independent, so rural life is appealing, but if she's not got those sorts of interests/life, what are the chances of this being a good move for her?

www.seloger.com/annonces/achat-de-prestige/chateau/saint-maixent-l-ecole-79/195737991.htm

The advert for the château with pp for gîtes.

The other thing to consider seriously is how old is your dd and how much French does she speak.
We moved to sw France the month after dd's 9th birthday. She knew about 20 French words. After her first year in college she was interne and at 19 was beginning to lose her English.
As others may have said, French schools/education are/is very different to the UK.
Dd possibly has PDA, but the rigid French system suited her a lot better, and she made progress I don't think she'd have made in the UK.

Some family members finally managed to sell their similar business in France after being on the market for years. They'd loved running it but it never made much money, sometimes made a loss, and the bureaucracy was a pain in the arse. Selling it took forever and they had to take a big hit on what it cost them.

Moving to France for your family/lifestyle is one thing, but consider separating that from the gites business side. Why not move whether your DH has friends?

Thanks again, everyone for taking the time to post. It’s really good to get advice from people who are doing it/have done it. Will show this to DH and we will discuss/ look into it further.

I would take over an existing property / business to rent for a few years so that you are not tied in extortionate transaction costs and timelines of buying and selling.

Keep any property in the U.K. Even ask for a secondment from work.

Dip your toe - don’t risk all your assets.

Or go and get normal jobs if you want a low key existence for a while - maybe rent out your U.K. property as an income stream.

Second the suggestion to rent rather than buy, you'll save a fortune on transaction costs and rural sales can take a long time.

We had neighbours in the country with a gîte, they went for the Anglo market and ended up selling off chunks of their land to keep going.

You need to be able to survive on just the holiday months or it's not viable.

Final douche froide is banks are massively reducing lending for mortgages (often lifetime fixed) with people being refused at the last minute after an agreement in principle - this is french people with french jobs too.

If you can do it though life can be good here, the bureaucracy isn't really that bad and at least the public services work. Your kids will be bilingual and eligible for an eu passport!

We lived in France for 5 years when my DC was young. We moved back when DC was 9 for personal reasons and we felt our DC would be happier experiencing their teenage years in the UK. It was easy for us as we still had a house in the UK to move back to (we rented it out). Me and DH are counting down the months til we can move back to our house in France 🇫🇷 (as soon as DC is settled in University). I would say go for what is best for your family but do your research and if at all possible keep a house in the UK. We had a small passive income and no mortgage so although we couldn’t live a lavish lifestyle we knew our basic needs would always be covered. I found setting up self employed in France (Auto-entrepreneur) very easy by following the instructions online. I know from friends that gites can make a modest profit. It’s not easy and I’m sure we will face challenges moving back as things have changed post Brexit but what’s life without a challenge. Good luck 🤞