Buying a second home in France is a very popular endeavour, with more than four million second home properties nationwide. However, costs can easily mount up without careful balancing of your budget.

1. How can you calculate your second home running costs?

On average, running a second home costs at least 1-5% of the purchase price each year, estimates Le Figaro. Similarly, you will have extra costs to run the home, including extra taxes and house insurance.

Consider the extra costs of: 

• Taxe d’habitation (levied on second homes)
• Taxe foncière
• Waste collection tax 
• Insurance surcharges levied by some companies if the property is unoccupied for 30 or 90 days a year

In more than 3,700 communes, you may also have to pay a ‘secondary residence housing surcharge (surtaxe d'habitation résidence secondaire), which can be as much as 5-60% of the municipal share of the taxe d'habitation.

And if your property value exceeds €1.3 million, you may also become eligible for the property wealth tax (l'impôt sur la fortune immobilière).

This does not include the cost of extra services such as internet, or maintenance costs. These can spiral if your second home is by the coast, as house facades and render can be quickly damaged by sea spray and damp.

Some authorities require owners to carry out regular renderings, which can cost around €40/m² for an exposed wall. Wooden facades and terraces will likely need regular varnishing or painting, as well as fungicide treatment. 

Older buildings - which, with their charm and character, might appeal more as a second home - will also need more upkeep than new builds.

For this, you will need to factor in the cost of materials, as well as labour if you need to pay someone else to do the work. These costs can reach into the tens of thousands, depending on the scale and scope of the work, and the materials involved.

2. How can I recoup some of the costs?

One popular way to reduce the costs of a second home is to rent it out when you are not using it. 

For example, you may choose to list it on sites such as Booking.com and Airbnb. The latter may be especially ideal if you have an unusual property, as it has categories such as ‘OMG!’, ‘tiny house’, ‘treehouses’, ‘rural cabins’ etc.

Sites like The Collectionist, Belvilla, and Villanovo may be good options for particularly charming properties.

You can also niche down further with more specialist sites, and choose to put extra rental properties on your land if you have enough space (e.g. shepherd’s huts). For example, if your property is eco-friendly, or especially unusual, you could try a platform like GreenGo or Canopy & Stars, which offers glamping-style yurts, chalets, cabins, and shepherd’s huts.

Listing online does require quite a bit of work, however; including good quality photos, descriptions, guest communication, gathering reviews, hospitality touches, and taking care of cleanliness and guest turnarounds. 

You can, of course, hire a management company to do all of this for you but this will incur a fee, which may be quite substantial. Other options include renting your home through holiday cottage companies, who will likely take care of all the admin and management for you (but also charge a fee).

This does depend on how much you use the property, and how far in advance you want to plan your stays. If you go to the property a lot, and at a moment’s notice, renting it out may not be the right choice.

Another way of cutting costs on a second home is to own it with another family or owner, and operate your own informal ‘timeshare’ system. This means you both get to benefit from the house at different times, but split the costs. 

This can have its pitfalls (such as agreeing on when to use it, and how to share out repair costs if something breaks while one family is staying), but overall it may help both families to save money.

3. Can I get financial assistance for maintenance costs?

If you have a property considered to be of ‘exceptional heritage’, you may be entitled to some financial aid to ensure its upkeep.

The law on historic monuments, which applies to listed or registered buildings (called la loi sur les monuments historiques, and bâtiments classés or inscrits in French), is one such scheme. Under certain conditions (such as opening the property to the public, either regularly or sometimes), owners can deduct up to 100% of renovation costs. 

You may also be able to get up to 40% of costs paid for by the cultural affairs body La direction régionale des affaires culturelles (Drac), if you do it in the required culturally-sensitive and appropriate manner, and do not change the external look or materials of the property. 

Financial prizes are also awarded to owners of distinguished properties every year, from private bodies such as la Fondation Mérimée and the Vieilles maisons françaises (VMF) association.