It is a great property, a great area, and a great bargain, but buyers in France are more aware of extreme temperatures, and pickier about the properties they invest in

Millions of people across Europe are suffering in an extreme heatwave with record temperatures reached – and it’s only the start of July. Scientists from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine estimate the heat between 23 June to 2 July killed 2,300 people across the continent. In France, fast-moving wildfires burned outside the city of Marseille, causing the evacuation of 400 people. As it gets hotter, 55-year-old British expat Catherine Higginson, who has lived in the south-west Landes region for 18 years, is seeing the impact of climate change on her property first hand. 

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In 2003, I moved from Dorking in Surrey to France with my (then) husband and our three children. Our youngest was just a year old and we wanted a better quality of life for our British family – I had watched a lot of those A Place In The Sun type TV programmes.

We started out living in the north of France, in Brittany. I worked for French property magazines and later as an English teacher. But my husband wanted to be somewhere warmer so we relocated further south to the town of Dax in the Landes region [in the south-west, near the Pyrenees mountains, less than 100km from Spain].

We ended up living in Dax for 18 years, and in the same house for 15 of those.

Now, my husband and I are divorcing so I moved back to Normandy in October last year – to be closer to my adult children, and live in a more temperate climate, which I prefer. Since then we have been trying to sell the house but it is clear that many people, like me, are leaving Landes. I am convinced that climate change is the reason why my house hasn’t sold.

The five-bedroom property has now been on the market for more than nine months

Over the last two decades living in Dax, I saw the weather become more extreme. We no longer had the seasons of spring and autumn, we just had torrential icy rain all winter and summers of unbearable heat. We were close to the Pyrenees mountains so we should have had snow but it was just freezing rain. I have horses and at first they spent all winter outside, then they started needing raincoats. Then bigger raincoats. Then it got so bad they needed a shelter.

By comparison, in the summer, it was so hot you had to get up really early if you wanted to do anything. Forest fires started all over the region. We also had extreme summer storms, with hailstones the size of tennis balls. Cars and windows were wrecked. You expect winter storms but now France has them in summer too. Flooding was thankfully not an issue for us but it was close by.

Our house has been on the market for more than nine months. It is a five-bedroom detached family home, built in the 1850s, with a hectare of land, outbuildings, and a swimming pool (now an essential with the weather). It should be really sellable but there just aren’t enough buyers looking in that area anymore.

The house hasn’t got air-conditioning (only 25 per cent of private homes in France have AC according to the environment agency, Ademe) but it is an old house that is built to be cool in the summer, which does make a big difference.

But I don’t think it is the property putting people off – it is the region. I think there are no longer vast numbers of people buying there and very strongly suspect it is due to climate change. There are also obviously fewer British buyers since Brexit, too.

Catherine has had to slash the price of the property by €220,000 or £190,000 to try and sell it but there is little interest

We have reduced the price significantly. We listed it at just under €500,000 (£431,000), but now have reduced it to €280,000 (£240,000). It is a massive financial hit, a nightmare really, especially as we’re separating and there is never enough money to go around anyway.

The price reduction has garnered more interest but I simply didn’t realise how much people are voting with their feet – I thought it was an enticing property, and it would sell. It is a great property, a great area, and a great bargain.

Perhaps if you’re just looking for a holiday home it is okay – you can lie by a swimming pool all day – but if you’re trying to work or do anything the changing weather is too much. In the summer heat your make-up is sliding down your face by 8am.

While we are struggling to get interest in our house, the property prices in Normandy and Brittany – where I am now – are going through the roof. The market here is really buoyant, which is ironic because historically property in the north was much cheaper. The locals refer to people moving from the south to cooler climates as “climate refugees”.

It is so popular up here I’m going to struggle to afford to buy anywhere – I currently can’t even afford to rent as I’m still paying bills on the house. I’m staying with a friend.

This region has also become more popular with Parisians looking to escape the city heat. Last weekend, it was 38°C in Paris and 25°C here, so you have people coming all year round (previously this village was dead outside of July and August).

If I didn’t think climate was a factor in my house sale before, I am absolutely convinced of it now because the property market is so good up here. I would go so far as to say that if our property was here I think it would have sold months ago, and for the amount we first wanted.

Buyers in France are so much more aware of extreme temperatures – they are being much more selective, pickier about the types of properties they’re looking to invest in.

On balance, moving to France was still the right choice for our family. There were no university fees, the healthcare is brilliant, but I didn’t see this problem coming.