Seven years ago, Julie Rayé, a 35-year-old single mother, left her house in the Pyrénées-Orientales after eleven years of working in the hotel industry. She decided to return to live in her native Ariège with her son, while pursuing a project of professional retraining to become a fiber optic designer. She first alternated between internships, unemployment and training, before signing a fixed-term contract in 2018, which would turn into a permanent contract in a design office in 2020, for a net salary of around 1,600 euros per month.
With her new contract in hand, Julie, who was then living in a council flat with her son, decided to become a homeowner.As soon as I signed the permanent contract, I wanted to buy a house. After the move, I promised my son that we would find a bigger house“, she explains. Julie Rayé then approached her bank advisor, in order to establish a financing plan and refine her project.
An old house at an attractive price, but requiring a lot of work
“The prices of new constructions seemed out of my budget. But in Ariège, you can find many cheap village houses where everything needs to be redone.” she describes. The young woman remains determined. But she worries about the costs associated with a poor insulation of housing that she visits. “I had a preconception about insulating the stone house in winter: I didn’t want to spend my entire salary on heating.”she testifies.
One day she visited a house that needed to be renovated in Lavelanet, a town of about 5,000 inhabitants, located about thirty kilometers from Foix. A stone building close to the historic city center, built in 1905, and which had apparently never been renovated since the 1970s. The house has a living area of about 100 square meters, to which must be added a 50 square meter attic that can be converted and a 100 square meter city garden. Selling price: 55,000 euros.
But Julie is not fooled. She knows that behind the attractive price, there are significant insulation and comfort works to be undertaken before moving in.I had previously done some research on the costs of renovation work per square meter. Internet search engines allow you to have a range for each item of expenditure.”she deciphers. During the visit, Julie therefore already has a clear estimate of the budget to add up to carry out the necessary work before moving in. “This allowed me to not to be “fooled” by the real estate agentfor whom a simple lick of paint and “the house would be like new”»she recalls.
Aid for beneficial renovations to finance the project
With the help of her bank advisor, the newly-employed employee “ceded” sets up a financing plan. She budgets for a purchase project that includes 40,000 euros of work to renovate her house. In total, after deducting her own savings, she is counting on a loan of 80,000 euros from her bank to finance her project. To do this, she benefits from a zero-rate loan (PTZ), which allows her to significantly reduce the amount of interest to be repaid on the total loan.Of the 80,000 euros of credit, 40,000 euros are financed with a rate of 1.5%, and 40,000 euros at 0% thanks to the PTZ”, she details.
At the same time, she submitted a MaPrimeRénov’ aid application to the National Housing Agency (Anah). After reviewing it, Anah granted it to her. aid of 20,000 euros to finance the work. “I benefited from the tranche of aid intended for households with “very modest” incomes.says Julie Rayé. She is also applying for CEE (Energy Savings Certificate) bonuses amounting to around 3,000 euros. Bonuses which, despite a dispute over the conditions of granting that will last several months, finally end up being paid through the Effy company. With this solid financing, Julie signs the sales agreement in October 2021.
A few months later, she continued the final work alone.
The renovation project launched by Julie is very ambitious. It includes upgrading the electrical supply, plumbing, interior wall insulation, loft insulation, changing windows and doors, as well as installing a thermodynamic water heater and a pellet stove for general heating of the house.80% of this work was carried out by RGE (Recognized Environmental Guarantor, Editor’s note) certified companies,” argues the new owner. She asks her bank to defer repayment of the loan until July 2022, the time for the construction to be completed. The bank agrees, allowing the single mother not to have to accumulate her social housing rent and her monthly loan payments at the same time.I visited the site regularly to encourage the workers and contractors to complete the project on time. At the very least, I needed to have electricity and hot water to be able to move in.” she recontextualizes.
The bulk of the work was finally completed in July, and the new owner moved in with her son. However, Julie did not stop there. Once the structural work was finished, she still had several comfort improvements to complete. She now wanted to renovate the second floor of the house, in order to transform it into a master suite comprising a bedroom, a dressing room, a bathroom and a living room.I know how to drill and hammer a nail, but I didn’t have much knowledge in DIY. I learned a lot of things to install electricity, plumbing, placo, tiles“, she lists. Her new colleagues help and advise her in her work. Without using new companies, she still spends 5,000 euros extra in various materials. Julie also undertakes to install a Waterair swimming pool, inside her garden. And sacrifices certain projects related to her accommodation. “For work, I work on weekends and during my holidays. I have not been on vacation in the last three years.” she admits.
A resale project whose price has tripled
Julie is now planning to sell her home. Her son, aged 18, has just passed his baccalaureate.I find myself in a big house. So my idea is to sell, and move closer to my workplace which is 40 kilometers away.“, she justifies herself. She called on a real estate agency, which estimated the sale price of his home at between 160,000 and 180,000 euros net seller. That is almost three times the price Julie paid in 2021. The ad, published in March, was set at 170,000 euros.
The energy performance diagnosis (DPE) of housing has also evolved in a spectacularly positive way.There are some great techniques for rehabilitating old homes in a modern way, using local companies. My house went from a G to a C rating on the DPE“, rejoices the fiber optic designer. Last year, Julie paid 900 euros in electricity bills and 500 euros in pellets to power her heating. “It’s not much, compared to current energy prices. This work has given the house a second life, while retaining its old charm.“The forty-year-old is now waiting for just one thing: for a future buyer to soon also fall in love with this accommodation.
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