Moving to France: We’re buying a dream house at a price we can afford

• Raina and Jason Willick left Texas in 2022, eventually settling in a medieval village in France.
• In France, the couple is buying an old house for $222,000 total — including all taxes and fees.
• The Willicks sought adventure and a more affordable place to call home than Texas. 

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Raina Willick, 44, a life coach for business owners, and her husband Jason, 43, who moved from Texas to France in 2022. They also post advice about moving to France on YouTube. The essay, which also incorporates quotes from emails between Willick and BI, has been edited for length and clarity.

Raina: My husband was born and raised in Texas, and attended the University of Austin. I lived in Texas from the time I was 5 years old. The majority of both of our families are still there.

In 2021, we briefly moved from Houston to Colorado for better access to nature, but after 18 months we moved to France on an adventure with our 11-year-old daughter. We thought it would be cool for our family to live in another culture and to learn a different language.

Raina: We kept a small rental house in Houston that we bought years ago. It was our backup plan if our international adventure went awry and we needed an affordable place to retire. We decided to sell it four months ago.

We will never go back to Texas.

We wanted to live somewhere affordable and beautiful

Raina: We went straight to France for a couple different reasons: One, we loved Colorado, but we were renting. We looked for a house there, but it just felt unfeasible.

Two, we moved during the pandemic, and Jason had been working remotely for an energy company that had its US natural gas operations headquartered in Houston. When the back-to-the-office call came, it was a decision point for us.

We did the math and realized that it would actually be less expensive for us to move to France for a year or two and have this adventure versus staying in Colorado.

Raina: We knew we didn’t want to be in Paris, even though it’s beautiful and we love it there. It’s expensive, and we wanted to be someplace more affordable, smaller, and authentic to French life.

We had moved to Colorado because of the weather — Houston is always 1,000 degrees, humid or raining — so we also wanted to live in a place with all four seasons.

We narrowed down our search to southwest France. It’s pretty temperate year-round and has green rolling hills, vineyards, and trees.

Raina: We live in Eymet, France. Eymet is an adorable French village of about 2,500 people. There’s a river that runs along the edge of the Dropt River.

The local French citizens are very helpful and welcoming, especially given our very limited French language skills. When we arrived, we felt welcomed in spite of the communication difficulties.

Jason: There’s a castle — a chateau — and a walled enclosure from the 1200s.

Raina: Eymet has a little square with shops around its edges, where the market is every week. It’s a medieval town, so the market has been on the same square for almost 1,000 years. It also has restaurants, a pharmacy, and a full grocery store that has a butcher, baker, and candlestick maker.

We are buying a house in France

Raina: Selling the Houston house meant we could realize our dream of buying and restoring a historic house in a place we want to live at a price we could afford — that is something that has increasingly felt unattainable in the US.

For the most part, the housing market in France is different from the US. There really are no buyers’ agents, but primarily listing agents instead. Because there’s no centralized MLS system, houses are listed on an agency’s site — it’s almost like boutique shopping for houses.

We found an agency — Clé Rouge Immobilier — that was very professional and easy to work with, and we were always checking their site. The house we are buying popped up on their site and we looked at it within a day or two. After touring, we made an offer on the property just two hours later.

It just felt like the right place.

It is a formal French house that was built during the French Revolution, in approximately 1792. It has six bedrooms and a formal dining room and living room. The home also has a large yard — 1.2 acres — and mature quince and apple trees grow at the property edge.

It costs $90,000 less than what we sold our Houston home with a small yard for, and our annual property taxes will likely be between $1,000 to $2,000 per year.

The house cost 204,000 euros ($222,000) total, including taxes, agent fees, some furniture included with the house, and notaire fees —similar to a title agency and closing costs in the US. We will pay cash, primarily using the proceeds from selling our house in Texas. The home deal will close in March 2024.

The property was also attractive because it has the potential to create a separate apartment to be used as a holiday rental for vacationers. This will supplement our income in France and offset the expense of maintaining such a large house.

I never imagined that we could have this kind of home at a price that feels really comfortable. And the quality of life that comes with the village — I just never thought that would all come together and be possible.

Jason: While we wait to finish the purchase of our house, for 1,300 euros (about $1,400) a month, we’re currently renting a four-bedroom, three-bathroom gîte on a French farm.

Raina: The home is furnished and the rental amount covers all bills including cable TV and internet, and even firewood.

We’re never moving back to Texas

Jason: We bought our Houston townhouse in 2016 for $254,800. Last year, we paid $6,300 in property taxes and an additional $2,500 for home and flood insurance, totaling around $9,000 for taxes and insurance for the year.

Raina: The property taxes increased faster than what we were charging in rent, making it difficult to ever do much more than break even year to year. If there was any major maintenance, it was usually a loss for the year.

Jason: It just felt impossible to ever get ahead and to ever make money on the Houston house.

Raina: I felt frustrated that sometimes too much time was spent on things that didn’t directly impact my daily life as a property owner or Texas resident.

The Texas state government has become too focused on political activism and culture wars, neglecting the real issues that affect everyday citizens. I don’t want to deal with the consequences of such a government or own property subject to their decisions.

Jason: What is happening in Texas that will make our lives better in the future? They’re not working on housing, roads, schools, or any kind of environmental issues.

Raina: I may never return to Texas because it seems the people in charge aren’t prioritizing things that really enhance daily life and the overall quality of life for most residents.

France runs at a completely different pace

Raina: Our biggest cost in France has been transportation. While the country has good public transport in the cities, here in the countryside we need a car to get around. We are renting a new hybrid car for roughly 700 euro ($762) a month and gas costs around 1.90 euro per liter ($7.76).

Food and household goods — like toilet paper, cleaning supplies, and pet supplies — cost us around 1,000 euros ($1,089) each month. We spent 45,000 euros ($49,000) in our first 12 months. This was about half of what it cost us to live in Colorado and 1/3 less than what we spent in Texas.

We didn’t know what to expect, but it is easy to access medical care. Doctors’s appointments with specialists, pharmacy visits, lab work, and getting treatments all felt integrated, easy to set up, and, most of all, affordable.

Raina: The slower pace of life was one of the reasons that we moved, but it was a big adjustment.

The lack of convenience was a shock. There are fewer 24-hour options, we have trouble with package deliveries, and stores are closed during what would be normal operating hours in the US. Often, businesses or events do not have a website and instead require a phone call.

People work hard here, but work is a part of your life, not your whole life. Sometimes this means you wait a bit longer for a response. But, in the end, you realize this is really the beauty of living here.