Holiday homes in Dordogne France, Gites to rent in Dordogne, self-catering holiday homes with pools to rent in south west France.

Back in the 1980's there were a few adventurous Brits who had moved to the Dordogne and set up businesses renting out holiday homes. There was no Expat community; Brits were scattered far and wide and most didn't know another Brit from another. They had fallen in love with the Dordogne and decided to carve out a new life for themselves.

Start of article about holiday homes in France.

Those pioneers who came during the eighties and early nineties were able to make a reasonable living by buying up old farmhouses and barns and doing them up themselves. Property was still very cheap in comparison to the UK and holiday homes that were advertised in the Sunday press were usually fully booked for the summer and most of the late spring and autumn. This was because the demand for self-catering holidays in the Dordogne far and away outstripped the supply. In fact many owners could boast bookings of 20 to 25 weeks a year as holidaymakers fought to find a holiday home at any time of the year so long as you could expect to get some sunshine.

HOLIDAY HOMES IN DORDOGNE FRANCE

Back then, holiday homes were fairly basic. Holidaymakers who came to France tended to be the middle class professionals who were coming for the food, wine, history and culture. A clean, comfortable house with good views and relatively close amenities were all the average holidaymaker was looking for.

People looking for sea, sun and sand usually booked a cheap package holiday to Spain where they could drink themselves paralytic on a beach somewhere. People looking for culture tended to visit France and the Dordogne offered and still provides more history and culture than any other region of France.

However, by the mid nineties, things were changing in the UK that were going to have a dramatic and negative effect on the Dordogne and especially the Expats who had carved out an ideal life for themselves.

GITES TO RENT IN DORDOGNE

As self-catering holidays in the Dordogne grew in popularity, house prices in the UK were increasing at an amazing rate whilst property prices in France still remained fairly low. People who came to the Dordogne on holiday were often envious of the apparent lifestyle many Gite owners appeared to be enjoying. Holidaymakers tended to see a couple swanning around their grounds; dealing with the swimming pool, cutting the grass on their sit on tractors, popping to the market to buy their fresh vegetables, drinking coffee and wine and enjoying a relaxed social life with their guests.

What they didn't see was the Gite owner rushing to get the house ready in the six hours between guests leaving and new guests arriving and the eight months of property maintenance - the painting and decorating, rewiring, plumbing, roofing and renovation work that goes on during the out of season months.

I suppose like everything and all of us, holidaymakers only saw what they wanted to see. They saw people who lived in houses far bigger and nicer than they could ever afford in the UK. And people enjoying a lifestyle they could only begin to dream of. Furthermore, they most likely thought that these holiday home owners were enjoying a financial income and lifestyle far higher than what they were actually achieving.

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The reality was that most holiday home owners had given up careers and high incomes to enjoy a more natural and less stressful way of life and now enjoyed an income that most people in the UK would consider to be subsistence level at most. However, most people who had made the move in the late eighties and early nineties were quite content to eek out a living providing they could live in the Dordogne.

But a different type of holidaymaker was now discovering the Dordogne and they were the type of people who wanted what everyone else had and were in a position to have it. This was because UK property prices were rising sharply and the banks were only too keen to allow property owners to release equity in their properties to buy cheap property abroad and the Dordogne was high on the list of destinations for many wannabe holiday home owners looking to make a fast buck.

SELF-CATERING HOLIDAY HOMES WITH POOLS TO RENT IN SOUTH WEST FRANCE

Some people simply released equity in their properties in the UK in order to buy a holiday home in the Dordogne whilst others decided to sell their house in the UK, up sticks and seek a new life in France. As more and more people decided to do this the consequences soon became clear that it was going to have a negative effect on the holiday home industry in the Dordogne and right across the Gite rental business in France. It wasn't long before everyone seemed to be offering holidays in the Dordogne in France.

Holiday homes in Dordogne France, Gites to rent in Dordogne, self-catering holiday homes with pools to rent in south west France.