Reasons for business failure

Living on an impossibly small budget while your funds run out is not a good idea, above all because it will make you much more stressed than you ever were before you came to France.

There are risks involved. As a minimum I think you should have 2 years complete expenditure requirements safe in the bank, in addition to the renovation fund, property buying fund etc. It will almost certainly take that long to get started and to get actual results.

This is the most common reason why people give up. To be brutally honest I have known families move out here where it was completely obvious they had no viable 'survival plan' for the first three months, never mind the first three years. And of course I can say that here because they are no longer in France...

Working 'on the black' as a labourer, fruit picker etc is not a viable long-term plan for you and your family. It takes one angry neighbour or resentful local to report you and it all comes to an end.

Poor marketing

If you are not successfully getting visitors to your gites, but others in the same region are, it is likely that your marketing is being targetted badly. You might have the nicest rental properties in the world, but if no one knows about them they will remain empty.

Relying on friends and family spreading the word about how lovely the property is may work for you. It didn't work for us. Now after a few years we get quite a few return visitors, but this takes time to happen.

If you can't seem to get this right, read again through the marketing pages on this site, and re-read your adverts while trying to put yourself in the postion of someone searching for a holiday.

Try increasing the number of paid listing sites for the first year - you can always reduce them again later - and check that your prices are not over-ambitious.

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