Off-grid · Rural France · Done yourself
Buy a French derelict. Live off-grid. For the price of a car
The honest, first-hand guide to finding a cheap derelict in rural France and turning it into a home — no estate-agent gloss, just what actually works.
Start here
Everything you need, in order
From "where do I even look" to living in it off-grid — the whole journey, told straight.
Where to buy — & where to avoid
The regions, honestly: the good, the cheap, and the ones where the ground will cost you.
Check before you travel
The free ten-minute armchair checklist that kills the duds — clay, flood, no land — before you burn a tank of diesel.
Off-grid: power, water, waste
Ground-mount solar, wells and springs, wood heat, composting loos — the legal, real-cost way.
Our real misses
The houses we walked away from, and exactly why. The mistakes teach more than the wins.
Every place we've viewed — and why we passed
We're still hunting for the right one, out in the open. This is the running log of every derelict we've actually stood in — or vetted hard — and the honest reason we walked. The mistakes teach more than the wins, and each one is a free lesson in what kills a "bargain" before you drive to France.
Open the search log →- Montandon · Doubs · £21kRoof gone, no barn, no usable land.
- Alligny-Cosne · Nièvre · £5kClay, nuclear zone, and AI-faked photos.
- Chastellux · Morvan · £14kThe perfect one — sold in days.
- Senoncourt · Haute-Saône · €48kBarns + 3 acres — still watching.
Find your patch
Where to buy — and where the ground will bite
Green is worth a look. Red means run the clay check first — cheap houses on shrink-swell clay crack, and won't grow you much either.
- Worth a look
- Check the ground
- Morvanforest · cheap
- Nièvrecheapest · clay
- Creuse & Haute-Viennecheapest belt
- Charentemild · English
- Doubs–Juranear the border
Why listen to me
I'm not selling the dream — I'm living it.
I'm buying a derelict myself and doing every bit of the graft, over the first three years. No paid builders, no rose-tint. Everything here comes from real viewings, real numbers, and the places I walked away from — so you can skip my mistakes and keep your money for the roof.
Start the journey →