How we really paid for this CHATEAU.

Today I'm going to answer the question that we  get asked the most how did we afford to buy this   Chateau where our parents rich, did we win the  lottery or did we just have enormous salaries   in order to answer this question I need to take  you back a few years but before I just want to   say thank you to Squarespace for sponsoring  this week's video more about that later 12 years ago I met Philipp in Paris at his  apartment I had a mutual friend that I worked   with who invited me for a night out we ended up  having an aperitif at Phillips apartment and I   remember when I first went and I first met him  when he opened the door and thinking wow he's   super handsome and then secondly wow he has his  own apartment and he has really good taste in   furniture and he can cook six months after meeting  Philipp I ended up moving in with him it was meant   to be temporary because I had a problem with my  apartment but I ended up staying and well the   rest is history about a year later we figured out  that the apartment was pretty small and we wanted   to buy something together Philip was really on  it with the research and he found an ad for an   apartment it was a beautiful location in the 18th  Aaron dismal of Paris it only had one bedroom but   we could see the potential for changing a bit the  layout and adding an extra bedroom at this point   we decided to put Philip's apartment on the market  when he had bought it five years previously it was   completely derelict it needed everything to be  doing and for Philip basically did everything   himself it took him four months that's probably  where he learned all his DIY skills but thankfully   the area in that five years had also become very  fashionable and cool that also helped us sell it   really well Philip being a film director didn't  really have a stable income but he did have a   good size down payment and me working for Balmain  I had a salary and together we were able to apply   for a loan we got this property for a very  good price because it only had one bedroom   and it needed everything redoing we spent 60 000  Euros and a couple of months renovating it all   completely and three years later when we put it on  the market I had almost doubled in price foreign we got engaged we got married and we had our  first daughter Lily so the apartment although   it was amazing and we loved the location it  became too small for us Philipp was literally   sharing his office with Lily's bedroom and our  spare bedroom so it was time to move on to our   next project the most important thing for us as a  young family was to find a property with a garden   and obviously prices for properties with Gardens  in Paris are extremely expensive so this meant   that we decided to focus our research in the  suburbs of Paris we put our apartment on the   market I think we had about 30 visits and within  a week it was sold we sold the apartment very well   and made a profit of 200 000 Euros in two years  this meant that we had a down payment of 350   000 Euros to put towards our next property during  this time I'd also got a pay raise at work so we   were able to increase our mortgage to 500 000  Euros we now had a budget of 800 000 to buy   and renovate this Terrace House in the suburbs  it hadn't been renovated for over 50 years and   it was a little bit of an ugly duckling let's  say I had a lot of original 1930s details and   we saw the potential of opening up a lot  of spaces doing a huge roof extension that   enabled us to add another two bedrooms and it  ended up being a beautiful home for our family foreign foreign the house came with a small 70  square meter Garden that needed   completely Remodeling and this was  Philip's first taste of gardening foreign he's in charge of now is only a thousand times  bigger having a lovely garden and a beautiful   home it didn't 100 satisfy our desire to escape  the city and during the next year I got pregnant   with Ella and it started us thinking a little bit  more about what we really wanted for our life and   our family although I loved my job in fashion  I found it increasingly hard to be a mother of   two and working so many crazy hours for my  job late nights and sacrificing my weekends   and conveniently Philip had an idea that had  been sort of in the back of his head for many   many years since I'd met him he just happened  to like slip it in there when I was probably at   my weakest and he made the suggestion that we sell  our house in the suburbs and buy that Chateau that   he had been going on about for about 10 years and  I was weak enough and desperate enough to say yes   one of the most exciting moments in our  Chateau Adventure was the day we went online   with our freshly designed homepage we've spent a  ridiculously long time designing it quite a fair   amount of money to a web designer to transfer  our design ideas to a properly functioning home   page and while it's not a price-winning design it  does a good job for the last two years I do wish   though we'd known about Squarespace an all-in-one  platform to build a beautiful online presence and   to run your business who also happens to be this  week's ad the good thing with squarespaces that   you don't need to have any programming skills  nor to pay a designer to build a professional   good-looking and extremely functional webpage  the way it works is simple you fill out a   questionnaire Squarespace suggests your template  which you can then further personalize with your   pictures and your texts there are templates and  functionalities for every use whether you want   to display your work in a portfolio showcase  your physical business online or maybe you   want to create a proper online store with  all the features needed to run a successful   e-commerce you can even buy your domain from  Squarespace which is a good idea because there   are no hidden fees or Price hikes so if you're  looking to create your own professional online   presence head to squarespace.com for a free  trial and when you're ready to launch go to   squarespace.com how to innovate a chateau to save  10 off your first purchase of a website or domain   Philip had his Epiphany on holiday in Italy and  as soon as we got back to Paris we made a plan   that we would go and start researching and find  our Chateau our only criteria when we started   our Chateau search was mainly the location and we  preferred an 18th century Chateau I think it was   the first weekend back we found a chateau online  and we went to visit it Philip fell in love with   this first property it was everything that he had  dreamed of it was a beautiful Chateau it had six   hectares of landscape Gardens it had a greenhouse  and the most beautiful orange tree however for me   it was just not in the right location and way too  rural at this point Philip was full-time Chateau   hunting and trawling the internet when he came  across this Chateau and it had been on the market   for two years at that point we immediately fell  in love with it it was everything we wanted it   was the location it was the perfect size it had  a really great energy it just was very welcoming   and I definitely completely envisioned our life  here as soon as I saw it in the meantime we sold   our property in the suburbs and after all the  works that we had done made a staggering 350   000 Euro profit if you think that's a lot then  consider that the guy that bought it from us sold   it just one year later and made another hundred  thousand without any more work this gave us a   down payment of 800 000 Euros our Chateau was  on the market for just over 1 million euros if   we got the same 500 000 Euro loan from the bank  we would be able to buy The Chateau and have 300   000 euras to start the renovation works foreign  it was a long and complicated negotiation and with   another buyer coming in we thought that everything  was lost either we forget about the Chateau we try   and move on and look for something else or we take  a big chunk of our renovation budget and we put   that towards increasing our offer on the Chateau  but this meant we would have very little money   to renovate The Chateau it was a risk that we  thought was worth taking our new increased offer   was finally accepted and we thought from now on  everything would be smooth sailing we went to the   bank who had told us already that we could have  the same loan with all our paperwork sorted and   then two months later we got the devastating news  that our loan had been declined and the reason for   this is the bank's Own Credit Insurance refused to  vouch for a chateau as a private residence having   already signed the pre-contract we knew that we  only now had two months to find another bank to   give us a loan if not we would not be able to  buy The Chateau we would lose the Chateau but   we would also lose a hundred thousand Eur through  down payment this put us under an enormous amount   of stress we were holding out hope that we would  find another bank but then we suddenly got the   news that a second Bank refused us then a third  bank and then a fourth Bank this even had an   impact on Phillips health and his blood pressure  went high this didn't help at all because one of   the main things that you have to do in order to  get a loan in France is to pass a health check   and the main thing they're looking at is your  blood pressure the main feedback we got from the   other Banks was that they didn't believe in our  business plan they didn't think we were capable   of renovating The Chateau and running it as a  successful business at that point a good friend   came to us and offered to put in a good word  with his personal banker who he had done previous   business with Philip pitched the business plan so  successfully that Not only was she convinced but   she was able to convince the whole back office  to give us the loan we cried when we found out   that we got the loan one person and only one  person believed in our project without her we   wouldn't be here today and on top of that we  gained a new friend is it's a messy and finimo   with the loan secured there was one head or  left the medical exam I was fine Phillip's   blood pressure was still very high the  doctor saw that he was very nervous he   asked him to do the test again and again and  again until finally the numbers were right   it was the most stressful time in our  Chateau Journey more stressful than the   most challenging moments in our Chateau  renovation but I would do it all again foreign if you enjoyed this episode don't forget to  subscribe and hit the like button for exclusive   videos and behind the scenes updates have a look  at our patreon page thank you so much for watching

Channel: How To Renovate A Chateau

Views: 84,711

Keywords: Chateau, chateaulife, newlife, countrylife, diy, renovating, familylife, restoration, france, castle, doing it ourselves, chateau diaries, doing it our selves, living in france, chateau Bed & breakfast, boutique hotel, luxury hotel, house tour, chateau tour, french property, country life, barock, architecture, architectural digest, escape to the chateau, howtorenovateachateau, escape to the country side, renovation, house and garden, buying a chateau, invstement, real estate

Id: INGmJoG8Hpo

Length: 12min 12sec (732 seconds)

Published: Sun Sep 25 2022