Long term house rental in France

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This site has a series of pages about buying property in France. If you have come here directly from a search engine, you may want to read them in order. Click for the first page about French property. To see the whole site at a glance, visit our site map

This page is dedicated to long term house rental in France. If you were looking for  holiday homes in France follow the link.

Although this page is primarily aimed at the British reader (they're the ones who move to France in the main), it should be applicable to just about anyone...

There are several ways to rent a house in France. One is to put a small advert in one of the specialist property magazines, such as French Property News, or Living France (see the magazines section). 

Houses are, of course, easiest to rent in the 'off' season. And that's probably the best time to move to  France to try out the lifestyle. That way, you get to see the country in the dark days. Life can look a bit different then. (Winter is a good time to buy as well. Houses sell slowly then, and there is more chance of a bargain.) Renting in France is usually a good deal cheaper than in the U.K. (subject to area of course!),  so an option may be to rent out your own house in the U.K. while renting in France.

To give you an idea of long-term rental costs, here are a  couple of examples from a newspaper of the 7th June, 2002:

Loue a Maisoncelles la Jourdan. Maison F5, sej, salon avec chem, 3 ch. Sdb. Verger. Chauf cent fuel. Garage, cour, jardin. 458 euro (3 bedroom, oil central heating. Garage, orchard, garden, 458 euros per month, the euro is worth about the same as the dollar - i.e. around £300 p.m.)

Loue. Bagnoles, pavillon s/sous sol: 3 ch, sej, 2 SDB, chauf fuel, garage, jardin clos, calme, libre. Loyer 586 euros (3 bed, 2 bathroom bungalow with cellar/garage. Oil fired central heating. Enclosed garden. Peaceful. 586 euros per month.) 

The French for 'to let' is 'louer' and the word used for 'lettings' is 'locations'. It may be worth going to fr.yahoo.com and typing in either 'a louer' or 'locations' and seeing what you get 

Or, you could go through www.pagesjaunes.fr - French yellow pages, and type in 'locations de maisons' and the town. This will take you to estate agences (agences immobiliers) who rent houses. Some have web sites. (also this site has an English version, but it's not foolproof)

Or try www.123realestatefrance.com.   - a useful site for renting (and buying), and in English.

Also, try www.fnaim.fr (FNAIM is the national association of estate agencies). Here, you can specify a Departement, and that you want to let.

 If these are subjects that are of interest to you, you should certainly read Alan Biggins'  two books A Normandy Tapestry and Selling French Dreams  -probably the most important non-technical (i.e. enjoyable!) books ever written about French property. 

This is one of a series of pages on buying French property and living in France, as can be seen from the site map. The next page is working in France - self employed