Property Renovation in France

How much should you pay for a renovation property?

1) try to estimate the cost per square metre of a renovated house in your chosen area, and of roughly the same size as your propsed project - ideally do this for several properties to get an average value per square metre
2) calculate how many square metres your renovated property will have, of internal floor space

3) Using the above estimate how much your renovated property might be worth

4) Deduct the proposed purchase price from this figure

5) This figure represents the maximum that you should need to spend on renovations for the property

6) Next divide this maximum spend balance by the square metres of the property. This should give you a broad idea of how much you can spend per square metre.

We look at actual costs per square metre in more detail below. For now, assume that you need 150 euros per metre for a general refresh, 500 euros for a major overhaul and 750 euros per metre for a complete build or build from a ruin. Remember it is always easy to spend more than this, harder to spend less.
If the figure you calculated in (6) exceeds these figures by a significant margin the property is perhaps worth considering. I know this is a very general guide but it may help you avoid pay too much for a house in need of a lot of work.

As a refinement to the above you would need to separate out the cost of the land. A complete ruin on 5 acres of beautiful hilltop overlooking a medieval town but with planning permission to build a new house can have a significant value because of the land and the planning permission, of course, even ignoring the ruin itself.

A Quick Guide to Renovation Costs

The most common questions I receive from people considering buying a property to renovate in France relate to costs of work.

What i have done here is to scedule the approximate costs of one of our own renovation projects. The project consisted of renovating a barn, with a floor area of about 250 square metres, from ‘barn/animal’ condition to a state in which we are all now pleased to live in the barn. The costs shown should at least provide an indication of the costs involved. I did do quite a lot of the less ’serious’ work myself - you will need to add at least 50% to the total if you do not plan to do this.

The prices shown are for what I consider to be a ‘normal’ standard of finish. If you demand the best quarry tiles available, solid granite kitchen surfaces and reclaimed oak floorboards etc you can very easily come to a figure very much higher than those below.

All costs are in euros (approx 1.5 euros = £1)

Laying new concrete floor, 150 square metres

7,000

Flooring / tiling

2.500

Roof including insulation 250 square metres

27,000

Roof (Velux) windows * 4

1,000

Insert openings in walls - 6 windows, 1 french door, in old stone walls

7,000

Doors, shutters and windows - 2 french doors, 10 windows, 12 sets of shutters

8,000

Staircase - poured concrete

1,250

Repointing stone walls, both inside and outside - cost of materials only, mason price per square metre is 25-40 euros

2.000

Rebuild 50 square metres of colombage wall

2,500

Central heating - oil based heating system, in part used some old radiators from another building. No underfloor heating

11,000

Build mezzanine floor - 80 square metres, supported on new timber joists

8,000

Plumbing and sanitary ware - bathroom, showerroom and WC room

4,000

Complete wiring

3,000

Kitchen - IKEA (fitted myself)

3,000

Complete new septic tank / drainage field system

5,000

Other materials - including all plasterboard for walls and ceilings, metal structure for internal walls, cement for 75 square metres of screed in the kitchen, woodstrip flooring and insulation for 80 square metres of mezzanine level, paint, timber etc etc

These were the main tasks that I did myself. If you are paying for these to be done or fitted for you I would assume more like 40,000 euros total. (Say, internal walls 30 euros psm, floor tiling 35 euros psm and screed 15 euros psm, as a rough guideline)

10,000