Surrounded by vineyards in the medieval village of Caunes-Minervois, the idyllic world of Tanya and Mike Barrett seems far removed from the recent elections in France and the rioting that followed in Paris. Fourteen months ago the British couple moved from Chesham in Buckinghamshire to a riverside property in the village, which is deep in the south of France. They now run gîtes, a complete change of pace from their old life.
“We are not personally worried about the outcome, though of course we might be worse off if they raise taxes,” says Tanya, 47, of the prospect of a hung parliament in France, and the uncertainty it brings with it. “Our experience here has taught us there is little point in worrying about things you can’t control.”
Deciding to give up an office environment for cleaning up after house guests in rural France was a bold move, but one they made with their eyes open. “We knew we’d be up against it after Brexit with the extra paperwork, but we love it,” Tanya, who used to work for a financial adviser, says. “The mairie [town hall] has been very helpful, and we deliberately chose an area with a vibrant year-round feel, close to Carcassonne and with lots of cracking wine.”
The Barretts, who run four gîtes and a chambre d’hôte (like a B&B) at Au Pont Romain, are far from alone in choosing to move to the Aude region of southern France to run a business, despite post-Brexit obstacles.
Some British buyers initially target Provence for its superb climate and status, but then realise their money goes further a few miles west in Languedoc-Roussillon, especially the Aude, with the historic fortified city of Carcassonne at its heart, and the beaches of Leucate and Gruissan an hour away.
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“It’s more understated than Provence and we do get a lot of retired people moving here from the Côte d’Azur, sometimes because it’s too hot there, but also because of the relative value,” says Daniela Harris of Beaux Villages, an associate of the estate agency Savills. “If you are spending €500,000 to €1 million you can get so much more house in the Aude.”
The satellite villages of Carcassonne are much in demand, especially those with the Canal du Midi running through them — it’s hard to beat a leisurely lunch at a plane-tree-shaded waterside restaurant. Caunes-Minervois, Laure-Minervois and Trèbes are all popular with buyers, Harris says.
Larger properties for sale through Beaux Villages include an elegant nine-bedroom mansion with a swimming pool in the pretty village of Olonzac, for sale at €875,000 (£739,000), and Château de Blomac, a stunning eight-bedroom property run as a boutique hotel and wedding venue, for sale at €3.98 million.
Andrew Guck of Leggett Immobilier, meanwhile, picks out a pretty, three-bedroom stone house with dove-grey shutters in the wine and olive-growing area of Villeneuve-Minervois, with a guide price of €239,000 — it has just gone under offer. “Houses about €250,000 are our bread and butter in the region,” he says, with recent buyers coming from as far afield as the US, Canada and Australia.
• Where to buy property in Nice, France
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There’s also a belle époque-style apartment in the central La Bastide Saint-Louis neighbourhood of Carcassonne, with its narrow streets full of delis and bistros. The one-bedroom property, which overlooks the cathedral and does well on Airbnb, is for sale at €175,000 through Beaux Villages.
The nearby Place Carnot, with its colourful buildings surrounding a hub of cafés, is bustling, partly thanks to its free parking at lunchtime.
The average price per square metre of an apartment in the city is €1,326, up 23 per cent in the past five years, according to the property portal Meilleurs Agents — but still a fraction of that in visitor hotspots such as Aix-en-Provence (€5,349) and Toulouse (€3,366).
Many British buyers are still interested in gîtes and in Occitanie (the region that includes Languedoc-Roussillon and the neighbouring Midi-Pyrénées) the British were the leading group of foreign buyers in 2022, with 18 per cent of transactions, followed by those from Belgium and Germany, according to a report by Notaires de France that was published this year.
Anna Vining, who has run a B&B in the village of Siran in the Occitanie with her husband, Philip, since 2015, likes to describe the region as a working corner of “proper France”. “We chose this part of France — the so-called olive belt — for the weather,” she says. “We have many cyclists, walkers and wine lovers, and also lots of house-hunters.” Anna, 62, from Cambridge, is selling her thousand-year-old property, La Sentinelle (through Leggett), but plans to stay in the area.
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Jon and Melanie Alport, also from Cambridge, came over in 2013 and restored an old winemaker’s cottage after becoming obsessed with Kate Mosse’s novel Labyrinth, which is set in Carcassonne. The couple, both designers, have run La Souqueto, an award-winning B&B, as well as gîtes in and around Mirepeisset ever since — perfect for the work-life balance they wanted after turning 50 (they have three grown-up children).
“I think the [Occitanie] area still has massive potential,” Jon, 62, says. “It’s still very shabby-chic with its family-run vineyards where you can rock up and taste the wines leaning on an old barrel.” He says that summer bookings are good but with fewer British visitors these days. “The Aude has been a [Marine] Le Pen stronghold for as long as we have lived here, but we have never witnessed any aggression towards anyone,” he says of the victory of her far-right National Rally party in the region in the recent election.
Trevor Leggett, chief executive of Leggett Immobilier, comments wryly on the fragmentation of the French government and any immediate concerns about tax rises. “At least they won’t be able to do anything [drastic] for the moment as they are too busy tearing each other’s eyes out.”
Need to know
• The Aude is easily reached from several airports: Toulouse, Carcassonne, Béziers, Perpignan and Montpellier.
• Allow about 8 per cent of the purchase price for buying costs on a resale property.
• To spend more than 90 days in every 180 in France you will need a long-stay visa.
