In times when neither savings accounts, shares nor bitcoin can be considered a safe or sensible investment, many people want to own their own property. After all, it represents a value that will still exist in ten or twenty years – and you can live in it too. All without paying rent. Paul Mappley and Yip Ward from Great Britain also had this dream.
The couple looked around for a suitable cottage, but soon gave up: Even small cottages were offered at extremely high prices. Nothing was found for less than 200,000 euros. The two could not afford a house in England. They could have given up - but instead they started looking for offers in the rest of Europe. And they unexpectedly found what they were looking for: in France. There was a whole village for sale there!
La Busliere, a tiny Normandy hamlet, consists of six small houses, a workshop, two barns, a communal bread oven and a cider brewery. That's it. The whole village was available for the bargain price of 22,000 euros. "It was incredibly exciting when we heard about La Busliere from a friend. We thought: wow, we could really do that!" reports Yip in the newspaper "The Sun". The two men are trained landscape gardeners and they have a plan: one day they want to open an idyllic hotel in "their" village.
"It was pretty stressful at times and we were always short of money, but having always rented in the past, we're so thankful to be here now," says Paul. The two now also get along well with the other villagers. At first it was a bit strange because they were not only the only gay couple in town, but also "the new ones" from another country. But after a short period of getting to know each other, Paul and Yip are now fully part of the village community.
So her advice to anyone faced with such a daring but appealing offer is simply: "Go for it!"
Sources: "The Sun", Channel 4
