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Escape to the Chateau
2016 · TV series · documentary · 47 min episodes · 9 seasons
Dick Strawbridge and his partner (subsequently wife) Angel Adoree swap their two-bed flat in Essex for an abandoned French chateau. Can they bring its 45 rooms and acres of land back to life?
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3 comments on Hacker News
I really enjoy the TV show Escape to the Chateau. A lot of couple buy an old run down French chateau and move in with their two kids. Each episode is roughly them doing up a part of it. Often with ideas for making money out of it.
Very much light entertainment, but it's eye opening how significant of a restoration and maintenance burden it is.
Oh totally (thanks for the link!), there's also a TV series "Escape to the Chateau" about this, and a followup series "Escape to the Chateau DIY" where the protagonists of the earlier series help others get set up in their new cheateaux :)
The whole Anglosphere seems to have issues with housing, in addition to those places you mention. It seems to be a common cultural issue where people gamble on property like crazy. I'm from Ireland, and this is true there (in the desirable urban areas where semi-decent jobs exist), it's true in the UK[1], it's true in the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.
New Zealand banned foreigners from buying property[2].
Among Brits, there's a (small) trend of retirees going off and buying a French Chateau and doing it up, because the cost of doing so will be the same or cheaper than buying a very modest place in many urban areas in the UK. This is spurred on by a popular TV show[3]
I'm not sure what the answer is. More construction, rent controls and banning foreigners from owning property, none of it seems to really fix the problem. Construction is often too slow, rent controls can put in place conditions for landlords neglecting properties, and banning foreigners will bring other problems too.
[1] https://old.reddit.com/r/britishproblems/comments/lvx0xg/property_prices_in_the_uk_are_too_damn_high/
[2] https://www.cnbc.com/2018/08/16/new-zealand-bans-most-foreigners-from-buying-homes.html
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Escape_to_the_Chateau