Poitou-Charentes - Country or city?

Thanks to reality TV, the phrase ‘location, location, location’ has become somewhat of a cliché. However, we are all aware of its significance in the property market. Before deciding on the specific location of a property (e.g. set back from the road, detached from neighbours, secluded garden, views over a sunflower field etc), most people have a reasonably clear (sometimes fixed) idea about the general location they are looking for, be it urban, rural or something between the two.

However, when you meet UK-based house-hunters in France each week, it soon becomes clear that people arriving in a foreign country often have preconceived ideas about the choice of locations on offer, based primarily on their experiences in Britain. Country and city, rural and urban are emotive, loaded terms. For some, ‘countryside’ offers the comforting idea of a natural way of life: tranquility, innocence and simple pleasures such as a sense of space or tending a vegetable plot.

Others shudder at the thought of a remote cultural backwater. Similarly, for some the ‘city’ offers the idea of a centre of civilisation, culture and excitement. For others, it simply suggests noise, chaos and crowds of strangers. Recent clients were leaving London in search of a ‘rural idyll’. While citing pollution, traffic and impoliteness as reasons for quitting the capital, they were understandably worried about becoming too cut off from the pleasures of theatre, cinema and restaurants, which they had enjoyed in the cosmopolitan city. As FPN has often highlighted, moving from somewhere like London to rural France is a radical leap.

Too radical? That depends on you. If reading and walking are your great passions, there won’t be a problem. If you want to be close to museums and libraries, it might be. For people like those clients who are unsure, renting for a few months is a good idea. As an example, a current guest arrived in our sleepy hamlet announcing that it was “far too remote” for her. Three months later she is in the process of buying in our commune, now aware that we are less than 10 minutes from a market town and having fallen in love with the rural location and the friendly neighbours (while walking her dog each day).

Conversely, my mother (who loves visiting us) would be driven mad by our ‘remote’ – another loaded term – location if she lived here all year round. Each to their own. It is surely better to bide your time, taking in the atmosphere of a quiet hamlet or vibrant city, before making your final choice. As my boss puts it, you are not buying a second-hand washing machine. It is a huge decision, not to be taken lightly. Between the traditional poles of country and city there exists a wide range of locations: suburb (often used as a negative term), market town and village. None of these are, strictly speaking, either urban or rural.

However, this middle path is often the most sensible one. If you are moving to France as a couple, taking retirement, and one of you doesn’t drive – a frequent scenario – then the benefits of living within walking distance of commerce and a medical centre are obvious. Often, these market towns are the size of a large village in the UK, but with far more communal activities and facilities on offer.

Equally, departmental capitals tend to have a number of delightful villages on the very edge of the city (suburbs), offering both tranquility and direct access to all that a metropolis has to offer. There is nothing wrong with arriving with a fair idea of your desired location. It certainly helps the agent! My only advice is that you allow yourself a certain flexibility when you rediscover what France has to offer.

Rodney Marshall works from Papillon Properties' new head office in Ruffec, Charente as an ‘agent commercial’ for Century 21 Tel: 0033 (0)5 45 29 62 10 www.papillon-properties.com

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