DCS

Bonjour,
I'm just wanting to introduce my self, well our selfs. My wife Helen and I, Dean have decided we want to make a new start for ourselfs and our 6month daughter May-Rose in France.

At the moment its just the beginings of a dream but something we have spoke about for years. We like mose expats have watched all the tv shows glammerising the wonders of living on the conternent and think it could be just what we need.

since having our daughter my wife has lost her mum who she was very close to to cancer. she was only 55 and has shock us all to the core. we spoke of leaving the uk when she was ill and always said we could never do it because Helen would never leave her mum. but now she is gone we feel theres not much keeping us here. i rearly see my family and we dont have many friends.

we are booking a holiday in may to the loire and gonna take a trip down to the dordogne to see if its what were looking 4.

ive loads and loads of questions to ask guys on here and will do in time. but thought it polite to let people know who i am before i do so.

Andrea50

Hello, and I am sure you will get many welcomes.

That's a great way to start, booking a holiday to an area you like. We have an Expat on here who lives in the Loire and who, I am sure, will be delighted to tell you more about that area.

I know the Dordogne quite well, and also the Lot (which is a bit further south) and the Tarn-et-Garonne area. If you want to know anything, please ask, we are all a helpful lot on here!

Anyway, welcome to you and your wife.

Andy

DCS

Dordogne is the region we would be more likely to want to move to. but the loire is closer to drive with a 1 year old. but we wouldn't be moving for a couple of years yet so we would have more chances to visit dordogne.

thank you for the welcome.

G-J-B

Loire and Dordogne are certainly popular places with the Brits (beautiful regions too). If I had a cent for every French person I'd heard moan about the Brit invasion in these places, well I wouldn't be rich, but I'd have 6 or 7 cents.
A holiday is a good place to see a region and area, but you have to be very careful to seperate the emotional appeal of a holiday from the realities of living in the same place. I've spent some wonderful holidays in various parts of France, and whilst I've got fantastic memories the rational part of me knows I probably couldn't settle there. There's a lot of things to consider, especially with a baby - for example I don't know how things are in the Dordogne, but there are regions of France that can become very isolated in the winters and with a young baby you're going to want some place with good access to creches, schools, healthcare etc. etc.
If you do get to make the move within the next few years your child will have a great advantage learning the language; you may have to take a lot of extra language lessons to keep up. I guess the other thing that is of big consideration for Brits moving to Europe is the terrible rate of the pound. It has me stuck in limbo, so whilst I'm living in France now in my partner's apartment, I couldn't consider purchasing my own home until the euro plummets or the pound recovers; I also have to face the reality that the day might never come.

Have yourself some great holidays, take your time to really see a number of places and if you take the plunge I'm sure you'll have no regrets.

DCS

g-j-b those really are great words of advise. i'd not put alot of thought in to the winters, do they get very snow covered?? this would not only make life with May-Rose hard but also serously affect my income if i did what i do here. def food for thought.

Ka Ora!

Welcome to the forum, Everyone seems to have buggered off for the weekend or has fallen over already.

I do recommend checking out a few regions lots are nice, You want to get a feel for the drawback prior to moving if any. We are in the same situation as you but five or six years ahead. My Oh's mum died of cancer whilst we were in France but we had shifted the Inlaws here as we got her an appointment at very good cancer hospital in Toulouse but regrettably she died on the day of the appointment as it had been left a little to late.

Despite our up and downs of which there have been a few we love living here, It would have to be a pretty fat golden Carrot to get me back to the UK now. We were lucky as we caught the Euro and UK house prices at their best sales have slowed down here as well so haggling on the advertised price is more possible.

And we are mid 30's as well but in Ariege in the Midi Pyrenees

val50

Hi Dean, welcome to the forum. There are lots of people on here who can help with any queries you might have, so ask away
What sort of work would you be looking for if you make the move?
That might make a difference on where you decide to live.
If you haven't found somewhere to stay on holiday, it might be worth checking the website of one of our members - Le Chant. He could also give you lots of information about the Loire region.

G-J-B

More bad news on the euro front today. On the highstreets your pound will actually score you less than a single euro. Compare this to May 2000 when a pound could get you €1.74! That's pretty darn depressing for those of us with savings in the UK or earning in sterling and having to convert into euros... Unless you're rich or have savings in a strong currency, it seems this exact moment would be the very worst in which to buy. If you plan for the longer term I'm sure things will pick up.

Ka Ora!

It is however a good time to sell "If you Can" and return to the UK. It's a big if you can If you purchased around 2001. For example and you Transfered £100,000.00 for a house that would have got you Euros165,000.00 returning that Capital now at Euros0.90 would get you £148500.00 which is better than any bank could offer you had you saved the money. But the biggy is if you can sell at your purchase price.

G-J-B

Naturally, somebody's downfall is another's windfall - I presume you're not thinking it over yourself Ka Ora? I'm sure the downturn will have a big impact on Brits coming to Europe both for tourism and to live (and those Brits selling up to come back home). Fortunately I think I can weather the storm at the moment, but I will have to look into earning more in the way of euros and dollars rather than crappy pounds!

Andrea50

Yep, we are in exactly this position at the moment. The scary thing is that the situation regarding our (rather miniscule) budget changes daily. One day I see a house we think we can afford, a week later it's gone out of range unless vendors will take a silly offer.

When the time comes and we have made a decision on the property we will probably "buy ahead" ie secure the exchange rate on the actual day so that the actual money to buy the property on the Acte de Vente day will be a totally secure and known quantity, as I can't speculate on such stuff, I just never sleep at night! One does accept in that situation that you could end up losing a bit yet again if the euro-pound goes up in pound's favour, but that's the game.

But it is all swings and roundabouts and any hit we take on the exchange rate I am hoping will be partially compensated for by perhaps French vendors accepting that they may have to take lower offers, especially as we will be what is referred to in England as "hot buyers" with actual cash in our hands and ready to proceed.

I am stiff all over from keeping everything crossed, but determined that the economic climate won't stop us pursuing our desire to live in France, and as staying here is really not an option, the "better the devil you know" adage does not apply to us either.

Happy Sunday to all.

G-J-B

I sort of know where you're coming from. When I finished Uni the house market was in a slow but steep decline, so I stayed with my folks for a little while, then decided to rent. I remained a renter and saved hard for many years, but the market just got worse and worse until it's reached this tipping point. Had I remained in the UK I would have gone for a purchase in a year or two, but now I'm in France, and the pounds going down all the time which is not at all to my advantage and my plans are put on hold for a few more years to come.
I'd like to say screw it and just carry out my initial plan to buy in the region I long to live in, but if I look back in 2 or 3 years and see I've lost potentially tens of thousands because I didn't wait, I'm going to be peeved for a long time! Anyhow I can't complain too much. I came to Paris expecting to hate it, and I'm actually enjoying it, and it's still France, just a different 'type' of France!

You may find that despite the pounds downfall, that property prices may drop a bit in France, and I think the Euro will begin to suffer with a bit more time. It will surely be to our advantage, even if it's far from ideal.

DCS

cheers val50 thats something i wanted to ask but didnt want to upset any one i.e forum mods, by asking for recomendations. i use another forum for window cleaners and the mods get the rite hump when people advertise there products for free.

which leads me on to what i plan to do work wise. run my own window cleaning business. I say my own business but in all honesty its a one man outfit but its a very good living, in the uk anyway. my wife and i have spoke about buying in france and her and May-Rose going over full time and i comuting doing 4 days in the uk 3 in france, untill i have built a business in france. i would live with my father-in-law
but i'm not keen on that idea as i'll miss them so much. we have done it before whan i lived in germany with the army but that was a long time ago and we didnt have a child then. also i'd worry Helen being in france without me to look after her. dont mean to paternise her but she would need my manly self there i like to think.

DCS

i dont understand i just wrote a reply but it didnt go on? could it be because i put a link in it? if so y dont the mods just delete the link?

val50

That's exactly what happens - it sits in a queue until one of us mods can check it out. I've just deleted your link so the post can appear in the thread. What you can do though, seeing as it's your own business, is put the link under your signature. If you go to the box marked my profile at the top of the page, you will find the tools you need there.
It's always a good idea to have a quick look at the site rules too - you will find them in FAQ, again at the top of the page.
Don't worry about mods getting the hump on here - they will all tell you what wonderful, caring mods we are!!!!!