So how do you find a house to buy in France? It's not like you can just pop down to the high street estate agents. Do people still do that? We did what I guess everyone else would do and went on line. We found a company called Leggett Immobilier, who were advertising French houses for sale but the website was in English - a good start for us at the beginning but other estate agents are obviously available! We spent hours surfing their website looking at the houses, exclaiming "How much? Is that all?". We also went to the French Property show in London and also the Place in the Sun : Home or away show at the NEC in Birmingham. Leggett's had a large stand at both shows and were really helpful without being too pushy, hard sell types.

It was through Leggett's that we chose the houses to see, and randomly through a tv programme that we chose the area we were going to look at houses in. Since then we have discovered lots of other places to look for houses. The Notaire in each area in France often has a website that advertises houses for sale for locals without the costs incurred from an estate agent. There are lots of French local estate agents, and there are other agents who concentrate on the English market. And last but not least is a website called Le Bon Coin, which is a bit like a French version of ebay but they also sell houses!

Obviously whichever way people choose to go depends on their personal choices, affected by such things as how good your command of the French language is, how much time you have to surf the net or visit the area you're looking in.

Anyway like I said we arranged to view 10 houses initially and then one of the agents threw in a mystery house too, so that was 11 houses that we had formally arranged to visit. In the end we also saw a couple unofficially but that's another part of the story!

So if you speak good French and are happy to do negotiations and deal with the bank, notaire and any legal paperwork, try the notaires websites in the area that you want to live, or contact a local estate agent. If on the other hand you want a bit more support and help with the move I can highly recommend Leggetts Immobiliers. So far they've been absolutely brilliant!! And no they haven't paid me a penny to say that. I don't write posts for financial recompense!

Next time the houses in more details and the things to look out for! Along with a bit more of our story...