Morzine Apartment Renovation
Discussion
Afternoon all!
From the chap that brought you this thread:-
https://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&...
Which was our journey in renovating an Edwardian Semi (we have done another since but failed to do a thread)
And this thread:
https://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&...
Me asking advice about buying property in France (especially in Morzine), I thought that I would kick off a thread in our renovation journey.
This is going to be a long runner as we plan to do this over a few years but when I get some time over the next day or so, write an intro post to it!
From the chap that brought you this thread:-
https://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&...
Which was our journey in renovating an Edwardian Semi (we have done another since but failed to do a thread)
And this thread:
https://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&...
Me asking advice about buying property in France (especially in Morzine), I thought that I would kick off a thread in our renovation journey.
This is going to be a long runner as we plan to do this over a few years but when I get some time over the next day or so, write an intro post to it!
We will be using a mix of us (when we have time) family (when they have time) local trades (when we have cash)
We are used to doing work in the UK but managing a project abroad is going to be fun and interesting!
We have a few followers from here on our insta @renovating_harrogate and yes I should be doing a UK house thread too.
We are used to doing work in the UK but managing a project abroad is going to be fun and interesting!
We have a few followers from here on our insta @renovating_harrogate and yes I should be doing a UK house thread too.
Background
For those who can’t be bothered to read the buying a house in France thread here is an abridged version:
We have been coming to Morzine for 25+ years (as a single person, as a couple (15 years) and as a family (5years) both for winter activities and summer.
We would love to retire In The mountains but we are a while off that (15 years). Our dream was always flip houses in the UK to build up cash to buy a 4/5 bed chalet and run a lifestyle biz once the kids were 18+.
After a chat with a career coach who asked the question, what’s our ultimate goal in life and why are we working hard and doing property on the side, when we described this they came up with a few questions like what happens if you had health problems between now and then and never actually realised this dream our mindset shifted and actually realised that if we cashed in our latest project we would have enough money for a small apartment now which would give us a foot hold in the mountains and also allow us to live this dream with our kids growing up. Without the risk of moving out their lock stock.
This was the final result our last project which took three years but left us with a significant pot of cash to buy another project in the UK and give us roughly €300k to find a place in Morzine. So the hunt was on!
For those who can’t be bothered to read the buying a house in France thread here is an abridged version:
We have been coming to Morzine for 25+ years (as a single person, as a couple (15 years) and as a family (5years) both for winter activities and summer.
We would love to retire In The mountains but we are a while off that (15 years). Our dream was always flip houses in the UK to build up cash to buy a 4/5 bed chalet and run a lifestyle biz once the kids were 18+.
After a chat with a career coach who asked the question, what’s our ultimate goal in life and why are we working hard and doing property on the side, when we described this they came up with a few questions like what happens if you had health problems between now and then and never actually realised this dream our mindset shifted and actually realised that if we cashed in our latest project we would have enough money for a small apartment now which would give us a foot hold in the mountains and also allow us to live this dream with our kids growing up. Without the risk of moving out their lock stock.
This was the final result our last project which took three years but left us with a significant pot of cash to buy another project in the UK and give us roughly €300k to find a place in Morzine. So the hunt was on!
Edited by andrewjamesroberts on Wednesday 7th May 11:06
Will be following with interest. We've skied in Morzine for the last 10 years and have recently started to go in the summer too, will be back there in July for a bit of mountain biking with the kids. Seems like a great place to buy - they're really investing in the summer activities and whilst Morzine and Les Gets have suffered in the winter for the last couple of years Avoriaz is great no matter the conditions lower down the slopes. I'd love to buy a place there but we do too much travelling elsewhere to make it viable, perhaps it's one for when I retire.
All the best with it.
All the best with it.
andrewjamesroberts said:
After a chat with a career coach who asked the question, what’s our ultimate goal in life and why are we working hard and doing property on the side, when we described this they came up with a few questions like what happens if you had health problems between now and then and never actually realised this dream our mindset shifted....
Sounds like bloody good advice!A good amount of me is still very much signed up to the assumption that I will live to 95 and am therefore not even half way through, but the wife's father passed away prematurely due to bowel cancer, and she has colitis which puts her in a high risk category for the same, so she as a much more pessimistic (or is that realistic?) outlook along the lines of "I'm going to be dead at 65" which given I will be 38 at the end of the month, and my dad had a fairly serious if non-fatal heart attack in his later 50s, does make you think. Ie, if you only had 20 years left would it change what you are doing now.
I digress, but yeah, important to balance preparing for the future with living for the moment!
Plan for the best, but expect the worst?
andrewjamesroberts said:
We would love to retire In The mountains but we are a while off that (15 years). Our dream was always flip houses in the UK to build up cash to buy a 4/5 bed chalet and run a lifestyle biz once the kids were 18+.
I can heartily recommend : https://www.amazon.co.uk/Skiing-Demons-Morzine-Cha...Different circumstances to yourself but a thoroughly enjoyable read.
JQ said:
I can heartily recommend : https://www.amazon.co.uk/Skiing-Demons-Morzine-Cha...
Different circumstances to yourself but a thoroughly enjoyable read.
it’s a great book! my wife (at the time girlfriend) loved the bit on ‘girlfriend skiing’Different circumstances to yourself but a thoroughly enjoyable read.
OP- having a place in the alps/ mountains to use for skiing/ summer getaway and a view to retiring is my absolute dream. one that is most likely out of reach, but I love following/ living vicariously through others!
I guess the first place to start is last summer.
We put our house on the market last June with the view to getting a solid offer within a few weeks (which we did, finding a place up in the UK to offer on then working out how much cash we had left to fund a place in Morzine.
We were due to head out to the mountains in the last 2 week’s of the summer holidays with the plan to firstly holiday but also view several places of various levels of renovation, size and location.
The property market had a different plan unfortunately….. our sale fell through 2 days before we left and we hadn’t found a place that fulfilled our requirements in the UK!
We headed out there being open and honest with our position and met some great local agents who walked us through the process and showed us what was on the market.
It probably is a good time to mention that the French buying process is more akin to the Scottish system where you find a place ….. offer (although you can’t offer over asking we were told). Once this offer is accepted you then get sent a contract called the Compromis de Vente which outlines the sale and key reports and surveys. Once this is signed you then Have a 10 day cooling off period before you are locked In And have to drop 10% deposit. After this it’s a few months for the legals to be completed before signing your deeds and transferring the rest of the cash.
It must be noted at this point you can add in what is called a Clauses suspensives which can note things like if the buyer can’t raise a mortgage or planning can’t be obtained then the buyer can pull out but as we were looking to buy in cash we would have to waive that right in writing and be legally on the hook.
With the above In mind having lost our buyer in the UK it’s very difficult to offer if we fell in love with a place as we were not in a position to proceed.
Unfortunately the first place we saw was indeed the one we wanted great location, size but slightly above our budget (this just means that our UK budget would take a hit). We did view a few more but nothing compared to “the one”.
Flash forward 2 weeks we were sitting in the departures at Geneva airport when we got a call from our agent with a full asking cash offer on the UK property and she wanted to move fairly quick, Boom we were potentially back in the running for the place we had just seen (still couldn’t really offer until we were 9 days out from a UK exchange to remove any risk).
Unfortunately a local Morzine buyer had entered stage left (who was friends of the vendor) and they were in a position to offer (full cash, or so they said) but move In Immediately and rent the place whilst the sale was going through. This took the property off the market and out of our reach!
After this “loss” we focused on finding a place in the UK which we eventually did (more on that in another thread) so we also knew that our €400k pot had now become a €300k and with 7% fees this translated to approx £225,000 to find a place and another 25k for fees. We did have the option of burning in to our UK renovation pot so this was not fixed just in case we found something worth spending over on. For anyone who goes to the mountains you will always browse the estate agents windows and will know that €300k doesn’t go that far!
We also had the problem of the kids being back at school so travel out to Morzine would be challenging due to having limited child care options.
Over the next few weeks we spent a lot of time browsing Right move international, emailing the agents we had met in the summer and setup a few FaceTime viewings. Our primary criteria was Location. We wanted to be maximum of 10 mins walk from the centre / lifts and be on a bus route. Secondary was number of beds/ quality of living space then Third was condition.
At this point we had our exchanges lined up in the UK so were in a good position to move if needed.
We put our house on the market last June with the view to getting a solid offer within a few weeks (which we did, finding a place up in the UK to offer on then working out how much cash we had left to fund a place in Morzine.
We were due to head out to the mountains in the last 2 week’s of the summer holidays with the plan to firstly holiday but also view several places of various levels of renovation, size and location.
The property market had a different plan unfortunately….. our sale fell through 2 days before we left and we hadn’t found a place that fulfilled our requirements in the UK!
We headed out there being open and honest with our position and met some great local agents who walked us through the process and showed us what was on the market.
It probably is a good time to mention that the French buying process is more akin to the Scottish system where you find a place ….. offer (although you can’t offer over asking we were told). Once this offer is accepted you then get sent a contract called the Compromis de Vente which outlines the sale and key reports and surveys. Once this is signed you then Have a 10 day cooling off period before you are locked In And have to drop 10% deposit. After this it’s a few months for the legals to be completed before signing your deeds and transferring the rest of the cash.
It must be noted at this point you can add in what is called a Clauses suspensives which can note things like if the buyer can’t raise a mortgage or planning can’t be obtained then the buyer can pull out but as we were looking to buy in cash we would have to waive that right in writing and be legally on the hook.
With the above In mind having lost our buyer in the UK it’s very difficult to offer if we fell in love with a place as we were not in a position to proceed.
Unfortunately the first place we saw was indeed the one we wanted great location, size but slightly above our budget (this just means that our UK budget would take a hit). We did view a few more but nothing compared to “the one”.
Flash forward 2 weeks we were sitting in the departures at Geneva airport when we got a call from our agent with a full asking cash offer on the UK property and she wanted to move fairly quick, Boom we were potentially back in the running for the place we had just seen (still couldn’t really offer until we were 9 days out from a UK exchange to remove any risk).
Unfortunately a local Morzine buyer had entered stage left (who was friends of the vendor) and they were in a position to offer (full cash, or so they said) but move In Immediately and rent the place whilst the sale was going through. This took the property off the market and out of our reach!
After this “loss” we focused on finding a place in the UK which we eventually did (more on that in another thread) so we also knew that our €400k pot had now become a €300k and with 7% fees this translated to approx £225,000 to find a place and another 25k for fees. We did have the option of burning in to our UK renovation pot so this was not fixed just in case we found something worth spending over on. For anyone who goes to the mountains you will always browse the estate agents windows and will know that €300k doesn’t go that far!
We also had the problem of the kids being back at school so travel out to Morzine would be challenging due to having limited child care options.
Over the next few weeks we spent a lot of time browsing Right move international, emailing the agents we had met in the summer and setup a few FaceTime viewings. Our primary criteria was Location. We wanted to be maximum of 10 mins walk from the centre / lifts and be on a bus route. Secondary was number of beds/ quality of living space then Third was condition.
At this point we had our exchanges lined up in the UK so were in a good position to move if needed.
We spent the next few weeks scouring right move speaking agents then finally setting up a FaceTime viewing on a modest but well located 1 & 1/2 bed 1992 construction apartment with stunning views and a tennis court!
Estate Agents pic
Our friends and family thought we were crazy Offering on a property that we had never actually seen,but the reports were all coming up green and what’s the worse that could happen in a well constructed 30 year old apartment block!
Estate Agents pic
Our friends and family thought we were crazy Offering on a property that we had never actually seen,but the reports were all coming up green and what’s the worse that could happen in a well constructed 30 year old apartment block!
And The World Cup races in late August in LesGets
https://ucimtbworldseries.com/events/haute-savoie-...
https://ucimtbworldseries.com/events/haute-savoie-...
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