When we first started out, we were very adamant about going the mortgage route. After a lot of research, we discovered that HSBC was the one bank that people seemed to consistently keep getting loans from as Americans.  HSBC is an English bank with branches in America and so we were able to actually contact a branch here in the States who was able to set us up with the right person to talk to in France. Being able to do a lot of the heavy lifting in English with someone here definitely helped expedite the process! We discovered that each region of France had a different HSBC advisor who's job it is specifically to handle all mortgage applications for that area. There is no team or department. In our case, there was one woman in charge of any and all applications coming in from home buyers for that specific region. Because of this, the process was slow going. We had started working with her in January of 2022 and had our flights booked to go view homes for June. By May, we were still waiting for paperwork to be filed and accepted or denied.
Helpful Tip: START EARLY if you want to go the mortgage route. First things first, so many people get denied for a mortgage. They are incredibly hard to obtain in France. They also take a lot more time than we are accustomed to in the U.S., so don't make any appointments to see a home or book any flights until you are certain it has gone through. 
Andy did most of the heavy lifting when it came to the financial end of things and we ended up going a really unique route that wouldn't apply to many holiday home buyers. Because of his involvement in this part of the process, I've had him write the next section.

When buying a house in France, we learned the slow and hard way how to properly do financing, so perhaps our pitfalls can help you avoid the same oopsies we faced. We found, when researching, that there's not much public info on the right way to afford your house, and there's no perfectly straight line on how to do this!
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Our first attempt was to go the 'traditional' American route, and get a mortgage through a French bank. What we didn't realize was, back around 2016, the US and French banks struck a deal to make it more difficult for Americans to, in essence, hide their money in overseas expensive properties, which in turn affected everyone. So it's much more of an arduous process to get an international mortgage! Compounding that difficulty is the fact that I, as a commercial director, am a freelancer. So while I had 2+ years of tax returns for our US mortgage, this means nothing abroad. We began the process with BNP Paribas, and also tried HSBC, and after literally months of back and forth paperwork, dealing with tons of red tape, and the language barriers of banking terms we'd never faced, we stopped. 

Side note - we did continue with HSBC as our bank! They make it incredibly easy for Americans to have an international bank account, that you can easily transfer money in and out of via your phone, and have plenty of English help lines for your French banking. Getting this set up for casual utility payments, and having a local banking debit card, were musts for when we arrived in France.

After failing multiple times with an international mortgage, our real estate friends in the US recommended what's called a HELOC, which admittedly I had never heard of / was nervous about. We had owned our house in Pittsburgh for a number of years, and the property value on our place had risen tens of thousands. We were considering re-assessing regardless because home values had risen + interest rates (at the time) had plummeted. So after looking into the details, it made tons of financial sense to go this route. As our realtor friends had mentioned, the banks will essentially loan you the excess value of your house, raising your monthly interest rate, but not question what you do with the excess cash in hand. 

One point to address in what to NOT do, is take a second mortgage out on your house. Absolutely do not do this, in my opinion. The interest rates are a bit predatory, you're perhaps putting your primary residence in jeopardy, and for us, the cash on hand was actually lower. 

So after undergoing a reassessment on our house, and getting cash on hand, we were able to draw a hard line in the sand on what we could afford, and move forward with making cash offers. There was one other matter that was a bit of a sticking point - how the heck do people convert their currency without getting hit hard on conversion rates?!? It had really bothered me for some time - imagine if you're rich af, and want to suddenly get your currency into another country at the lowest rate possible. What are those people doing? 

When you google US to Euros, and the conversion calculator pops up, you're technically seeing the lowest international transaction rate possible, but no one actually gets this rate. And it changes every 60 seconds. But you want to try and get as close to this rate as possible, potentially saving you thousands! Enter a currency broker - something that's excited since the 90's, where you essentially promise to buy X amount of a currency which can be triggered once the exchange rate hits a certain low. I was so damn skeptical of this route (as we would be converting hundreds of thousands essentially), but found solace in a company called Currencies Direct. They thankfully can be reached via their Orlando office, which leads to a plethora of help in wonderful English speakers. You make an account, top up your bank account, and use them to internationally wire the money, at a super low conversion rate. 

So while our journey undertook a very specific set of circumstances on how we afforded and paid for our house, I still think for Americans using a cash offer is the best way to buy an international house! And while it might cause you to enter at a lower price point, it's a super safe and solid way to afford your house in France. 



(More info. coming soon! If you want to know more before info. is added, please contact me via the contact page. I'd love to help you get started!)