Ten years ago when the franc was still in circulation, we were doing a boating holiday on the rivers of Brittany and during a stop at Josselin, we stumbled on a run down 4-bedroom stone house (by the river) sitting on 2 acres of land for 60,000 francs or less than 10,000 euros; I could have easily whipped out my credit card to pay for it but the real estate agent office was closed that week and probably missed one of the best real estate purchases of our life.

I bet that house in the same condition would sell 20x what it was being sold for at the time (10 years ago.)

But I don’t feel sorry because we’ve just purchased a stone house with several outbuildings sitting on 7 hectares in Cotes d’Armor and a fraction of what it would cost in say, Sommerset or elsewhere in England.

Apparently a little while ago someone asked in our local tourist office if they had an ‘English’ noticeboard because they wanted to sell their house to someone English. Can’t imagine why.

Although it had been ‘done up’, it really needed gutting and doing properly from scratch. We were going to put in an offer – and were prepared to go up to a very generous 80,000 euro (it was worth about 60,000 euro because of the state it was in).

They told us it was on the market for 250,000 euro!!! We thought – no chance!

Two weeks later it was sold to another English Couple for over 200,000 euro. They have spent the last 4 years throwing money down the proverbial plughole, to try and correct the various defects.

As long as there are ‘etrangers’ who do not do their research and are prepared to pay hugely inflated prices ……..