Mini chateaux are all the rage in France right now
Published:
10:05 a.m. 11 February 2022
Boosted by TV shows such as Getaway to the Castle and DIY castle, Britons have long coveted affordable fairytale properties in France. Now, it seems the French too are buying into the chateau dream in a pinch.
According to the Mercure Group, a luxury real estate agency that claims to sell one in three French chateaux, sales of flashy multimillion-euro properties have fallen by 20% over the past two years, mainly due to the absence of wealthy foreign buyers.
However, batteries from more modest countries priced below €800,000 – and ideally around €500,000 – are proving popular with French buyers – with sales up 20% in the last year alone.
Welcoming chateaux, mini mansions and mansions with grand features are proving hugely popular with upwardly mobile French city dwellers suffering from covid claustrophobia, says group chief executive Olivier de Chabot-Tramecourt. Indeed, the budget most valued by its customers is now €500,000.
“The [luxury] market remains dynamic and lively. It’s just that the expectations and the type of properties most in demand have changed,” he told the Figaro Journal. “This trend is explained by the desire of our customers to acquire, at the same price as an apartment in town, a beautiful property in a rural or peri-urban area.
You certainly don’t have to be a millionaire in France to choose a grand but manageable residence with high ceilings, large windows and at least echoes of Versailles or the Loire Valley. Are you looking for turrets and balconies? Frontons, plasterwork and parquet floors? A vast entrance hall and a vaulted wine cellar? Bull’s-eye windows in the Baroque style or facades in the Renaissance style? You are spoiled for choice.
Unsurprisingly, the beautiful houses not far from the capital sell particularly quickly.
“For this budget of less than 800,000 euros, it’s madness with us at the moment for properties located up to 100km or even 150km from Paris”, confirms Marc Foujols who runs a real estate network of the same name. “As soon as we bring in properties of character at this price, they leave very quickly.”
Even though overseas buyers have been limited by the pandemic, they’re still getting a piece of the action.
“The increase in demand for this type of property has been staggering – with demand from French and international buyers,” says Joanna Leggett, of French-speaking agency Leggett Immobilier. “You only have to look at the page views on our sites to see that buyers browse the castles while sipping their coffees in Paris, London and New York.
“Over the past two years, our French website has had 1.1 million views on URLs containing ‘château’ or ‘maisons de maître’, while our English website has had 6.8 million views on the same period. Obviously, visits and actual sales are also up.
Joanna adds: “The vast majority are not dreamers looking at the property pornography of glorious and historic castles, but serious buyers with budgets of €500,000 to €2m looking for a country property that can accommodate a extended family and can also be used as a home office. . Again, it’s all about location, location, location and the property must have excellent communication links – rural but accessible is the mantra.
Samm Khoury, from the south-west agency Richard Immobilier, saw his entire stock of small chateaux snapped up last year.
“They were on the market for five or six years and then all of a sudden they all sold between 500,000 and 1 million euros. And there’s always demand,” she said. “However, those priced above €1m haven’t really moved much in the last couple of years.”
Many buyers have headed to rural Gascony in southwestern France, where the rolling hills, clean air and fertile land between coast and mountains are credited with giving residents one of the average life expectancies the longest on the planet.
“The small mansions and castles have been very affordable for customers leaving the cities,” explains Edward Landau of Agence Le Bonheur. “In many cases, the proceeds from the sale of a modest apartment in one of the larger cities is enough to buy a very prestigious property here.”
Gascony is also well known for its large, characterful farmhouses, with generous hallways, high ceilings, traditional terracotta tiles and expansive grounds – often at modest prices.
“The abundance of stock that we were used to just a few years ago seems like a faint memory as agents and customers clamor for what is still available in the area,” said added Edward. “We are starting to see prices move up with growth of around 8% for the calendar year but I think this could accelerate due to the unprecedented level of demand.”