I have had an idea but is it silly?

Beatle_Ray

Hello,
I had an idea last night which might be a bit silly so I need some guidance please. I have a three bedroom house in Hertfordshire which is valued at approx. £420 based on recent house sales opposite me, we have just over £100K owing on the mortgage which is due to be paid off in ten years or a but sooner if I make over payments. We have no one to leave the house to, its just myself and my DW so I thought that if I sold this property in the next year or so bought a smaller house here and a smaller property in the South of France, I have looked and can get something for about £120K and use the remainder of the money to buy something smaller here, I wouldn't want to live in France full time but would visit once/twice a year and let friends and family use it or even rent it out every now and then but I'm not looking to make any real income from this. My expectation is that I could buy somewhere here for about £250K plus the £120 in France would mean I end up with a mortgage of about £50K which is less than what I have now, tell me if that is just plain daft or not.
Thanks

Slinky

£120K is a lot of money to pay for a holiday a couple of times a year for the rest of your life. Plus the costs of the property in France don't stop at the purchase price. Plus because you own this property, you end up only ever going there on holiday and see nothing else of the world.  Or you do go other places so end up having the costs of that holiday on top of the costs of buying/maintaining the one in France.

It would be cheaper to rent somewhere in France when you do want to visit.

GDB2222

A holiday home is a lot of work and worry and it's really quite expensive. If you're only visiting occasionally, you'll have to arrange someone local to see to maintenance. They'll also have to inspect it for you fairly frequently.

We have friends with one in France, and they muttered something about tax, but I can't quite remember what! 

Renting it out is all well and good, but it sort of means it's not your home any more. You'll have to lock all your personal stuff away every time you visit. That sort of thing. 

I take it you'd be buying in an area you have visited and stayed in many times?

AdrianC

I don't know if you've been following the news over the last four years or so, but it isn't quite as easy as "Buy a house in France, live there" any more, thanks to some rather naive people believing a big red bus.

Stenwold

It's not the worst idea in the world, if you find the right place in France. However, if you're not looking to make an income from the property, and you're happy to plough 120k into it then you might want to consider setting aside the 120k for an extravagant holiday fund. You'll be able to rent lovely apartments/villas once or twice a year for a very long time, with no worries about the general cost of maintaining a property in France.

AnotherJoe

It's plain daft. Why own a house in France with all the hassle and cost compared to renting one . If you'd have said you'd live there half the year then I could see the sense. As it is you are giving yourself a massive headache and most likely the couple of times you'd visit it you'll be DIYing the whole time 

Beatle_Ray

Thanks for the general advice so far I do appreciate it - in answer to some of the questions, yes it is to a place I have visited many times and do really like it and I would visit other places also, I appreciate Brexit has rather mucked this up but I assume rightly or wrongly that if I turned up with a bag full of money we will be able to find a way around it, yes the rental side does make sense, for about two weeks it would cost approx. £2K but the thought of owning something that should only increase in value is more appealing and as I get older, I'm 57 now, I hope to be spending more time there, it would only be a small property and I would look at something new so any maintenance would be at a minimum hopefully - does that make sense?

GDB2222

Will it have outside space? A garden?

tom9980

Makes more sense to invest the £120k and use the income generated to spend on holidays, lots more options this way.

AnotherJoe

My brother owed new apartment in Spain (eg minimal maintenance) and it was nothing but a pain. 

So, no repairs but always something needed paying. And then you are stuck with yout holidays there for the rest of your lives or it's just a big chunk of money doing nothing. How do you know it will rise in value? By all means downsize, then spend the money on something that won't anchor you to one spot all the time and require rafts of form filling an legalities. 

citroen999

£120k tied up in a holiday home for possibly 2 holidays a year... i wouldnt do it. You could quite easily buy a house in Sheffield For £120k (I live there) rentit out for about £600 per month, that gives you £7200 per year to spend on holidays in France, but your property is over here which means your money is over here, so no additional worries, Plus you probably know more about the UK property market rather than the French market... Your UK Property would definitely go up but i'm not to sure about the the French one.