Yes, take your point, at that level you can’t take chances.Even if we wanted to, we wouldn’t get away with that with my stuff. My cars are going to stick out like a sore thumb in France where 99% of folk drive an old (usually French) and battered box…
View attachment 866190
It’s strange for a country with such a motorsport heritage (LeMans) but far more Frenchies than Brits just don’t care about cars. Maybe I could just ride around on the Serow.. My own bike, a 748 Ducati will likely just sit in our giant new lounge as an ornamentIt’s too painful on my back and wrists for me to ride these days - I will be buying something more comfortable to actually ride over here, and it will be a Triumph. The problem with ignoring the law (same for your sister) is that it’s all fine - until it isn’t. If she gets a pull by the Gendarmes, or has an accident, especially if someone else’s nice car is damaged or much worse someone gets hurt, and they could prove she’d been doing her thing for years while ignoring the law she could find herself in hot water. It’s the same with the grand gite and event licences and insurances etc. Sure you can ignore it, but if there was a fire there’d be no insurance. If someone got hurt again we’d be in big trouble. Yes the Frenchies love to dodge their own often stupid rules, it’s always fine until something goes wrong, a sentiment I’m sure that the vast majority of the members of this forum will agree with.
It’s why we’ve found a place that’s squeaky clean, legit and legal, unlike most of the places that do the group thing, including many of the manor houses and chateaux. It also just needs a really decent redecoration rather than pulling down as most of the places we’ve seen do. We do think that the French are going to start tightening up enforcement of the various laws and regulations especially after last years terrible accident.
We are buying an old farm, ugly old barn buildings, nothing to write home about from the outside. No ‘wow’ moment when it’s first seen. It’s going to be a little bit of a challenge to market compared to all the (in reality crumbling) old chateaux or large manoir that are doing the same thing. It’s even in a bit of a nondescript location.
But, as before, I think I can see good potential. Current turnover is only €60k, but the couple who created it as an early retirement present to themselves are now both 70 and not in perfect health. They accept 16-20 purely weekend bookings per year and that’s it. The fact that they get any bookings at all says much, there’s minimal advertising and the website is, well, very poor by modern standards. You’ve all seen the same, websites for french gites that were put together 20years ago, grainy photos uploaded from ancient camera phones etc.
We think going from 20 to 30 weekends by increasing the appeal to a far broader spectrum of groups by creating more rooms will be easy enough, and then offering family rooms in the place midweek through summer via AirBnB will easily add another 20% to turnover. Finally, with a super stylish makeover of the whole place and many tropical plants etc, we reckon we can offer midweek yoga retreats, business seminars and school/college groups wanting to visit the doorstep attraction which offers some of the best activities and education for young adults - they are developing rock climbing and giant zip line activities, in addition to their main and major attraction. This should conservatively add another 20% so we reckon €130-€150k should be possible within 2yrs with 65-70% margin (ZRR - it’s tax free or minimal tax for 7 years!). The current owners accountant fully agrees.
We will need to put in €300k over 3 years though to quickly get the place how we want it and add the extra rooms. €50k of that is just to build me a decent garage/man cave though, but Bea is happy as another €50k will be an overhaul of our own house, all new kitchen etc.
So a bit of input and a year or so of spending and then it should be a clean €90-100k of annual profit (from €140-150k of turnover) for just marketing and management. We will employ a cleaning team for the cleanups. Most of our costs, all bills, food etc will naturally go through the business so that’s a decent enough disposable income, and it even compares well with what we were expecting from that big campsite, where we’d hoped for €400k annual turnover, but with €100k of debt servicing, €100k of staffing costs, and €100k of operational costs inc the new static caravan loan repayments at €30k a year, we’d have had a similar disposable income, but an absolute ton more work, hassle, stress etc. Right decision methinks.
It’s an ugly prison from the outside, but the facilities on the inside are very nice. Lots of space and purpose designed as a giant house for a highly sociable and close family of 30 people. It just needs finishing (more rooms), modernising in terms of decoration, ie having life breathed into it, it looks a bit like a hospital.
The best for us is that there is a very characterful and nice sized seperate house oriented that we don’t need to see the weekend partying and they don’t need to see us. It will work very well to create the a fully optimised work-life balance in what we think is a lovely corner of France with good access to Le Mans, Loire Valley and Paris, and it’s just a couple of hours from Beas old Dad which she’s very pleased about.
All in life is a compromise - this one is the best we could find for us that can easily generate a half decent income without borrowing lots of money, without years of work to build it in the first place, and without hard graft and hassle to earn a bob or two out of it. I never thought that this would be the case 18m ago, but I am now more than happy to live with the fact that it isn’t a chateau, which from what we’ve seen, are very often just total money pits.
Had one myself back in the day, among many different bikes. A half faired 1993 900SS.
Yes the carb icing was a much discussed issue. And of course anything can shear at any time, this is normal. I’d love to meet one of the team that designed these bikes. The Desmodiabolical rockers that are almost impossible to shim. The dry clutch that sounds like a bag of spanners being shaken. The electrics that live on a knife edge. The riding position. But then, the handling that’s like being on rails. As you said, life is full of compromises. And that’s the fun in life isn’t it - to choose your own compromises, in your gite, bike or camper van? Sitting here in my half-converted Transit on a mountain in Spain, with my wife and dogs, I am fully experiencing compromise. Love it!
Have you thought of themed events such as murder mystery weekends etc? You could really have some fun with a Halloween one!
Love a turrets
It’s not a road it’s the places own car park. There are more windows on the other side, but not loads.
There must be some kind of way outta here
Interestingly, Dylan preferred Hendrix’s cover to his original, and has always played it that way since Hendrix’s death. I actually saw Dylan play it at the Kent hop festival in 2010, though even then he could barely sing anymore.
So it'll be a tower power shower.-the bathrooms are cool though, they are in the tower
That's a bit harsh.
I'm not sure that what he does could ever have been properly characterised as 'singing'. Saw him in Hyde Park in 2019 and it was pretty much the same muffled angle grinder sound effects. Fortunately Neil Young was there to remind us we were rockin' in the free world.
He was always changing to keep his fans and critics on their toes.
It’s not a road it’s the places own car park. There are more windows on the other side, but not loads.
Here’s a pic of one of the other buildings, this one is the actual owners/proprietors house. Similarly there ain’t many windows -the bathrooms are cool though, they are in the tower
View attachment 866776
The gable end of the second of the big converted barns is visible poking out behind.
Sorry about that, I thought you were on to a good one here and that it was finalised.
That’s the main of it.
Thankfully we haven’t. Helga is still going strong, though are considering giving up on the search, it’s exhausting. We will see how we feel post the imminent formal withdrawal of the offer. Maybe just one more month, one more full on assault at finding something in the first month of spring then that’s it.
Wise words, that would certainly be my thinking.
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