Your village is at the center of your "ecosystem" THE DOT ON THE MAP IS NOT THE PLACE One of the easiest mistakes to make when searching for a home in France is to confuse a village with a location. You visit somewhere attractive, walk around the centre, have lunch, look at a few houses and think: yes, I could live here. Perhaps you can. But before you start searching seriously, zoom out. The village is only one dot on a much larger map. What matters is not simply what exists inside the...

Summer winter contrast THE SATURDAY PROBLEM France is very good at Saturdays. The market is open, café terraces are full, somebody is selling cheese under a striped awning, and the restaurant you discovered last night has somehow found you a table for lunch. The sun helps. So does the fact that you are on holiday. Under these conditions, an attractive town or village can feel almost impossibly easy to fall in love with. The problem is that you are not buying the Saturday. If you are...

A beautiful house can still be in the wrong place. DON'T LET HOUSES CHOOSE FOR YOU Most people looking to buy in France start with houses. This is completely understandable. Property websites are easy to use, endlessly entertaining and very good at turning a vague idea into something that suddenly feels real. You begin with a budget and perhaps three bedrooms. Twenty minutes later, you have saved a stone farmhouse in Normandy, a village house in Provence, a converted barn in the Dordogne and...