When we first moved to France, we were told that April isn’t a good month to search for an apartment due to the peculiarities of the local housing market.

We were quite conscious about what we wanted to get: a three-bedroom apartment in a pleasant place. One bedroom is a bedroom (surprise-surprise!), another is my wife’s study that can also serve as a guest bedroom, and the third room was planned to be transformed into my workshop.

That’s what we got in the end. But in the process, we have completely exhausted all of the seven options (yes, seven) available to us at that moment in Versailles.

Well, in reality, there were a bit more apartments available there. I guess the total size of the market within the limitations we set was triple that number. Not that this is a lot. But we didn’t qualify for them right from scratch because we do not have two years of French tax return history. And that’s something that can be demanded to fit some insurance standards.

So, here’s something new for us to consider in the future: there may be seasonal migrations in a country you are moving to. Not that we had any chance to postpone our move by 4-5 months.

It appears (or so we were told) that almost no one moves during the cold months. Moreover, there are laws prohibiting landlords from evicting their tenants during these months even if they are not paying the rent (hence the insurance, etc.). The other thing to consider is that many families prefer to move before the beginning of the school year. That’s not a specifically French thing, though. But having lots of weeks for vacation is a French thing, and they are seemingly using some of these weeks to cover the moving period (which is quite reasonable).

Now, August has arrived, and it seems we are witnessing the process as spectators. Or at least as listeners. We had a family of six as our neighbors on the floor above us. Two parents and four kids. And this seems quite a lot for an apartment with four rooms. I guess that’s what they thought as well, as currently, there are renovations going on in that apartment.

Yesterday they were scraping the wooden flooring. Today they are seemingly grooving and drilling the walls. I’m not sure if I will be able to record a podcast episode this week with all these noises. And I really hope they finish the process before September begins.

So, another thing to consider, in France you may want to use all four weeks in August for your vacation. Luckily, Sofya has something like 8,5 weeks of vacation time per year, so even with spending the whole of August away, you have other chances to travel during other seasons as well.

I cannot say that I’m unhappy with this family moving away, though. Firstly, I’ve been a bit upset with all the shouting sessions parents had (supposedly shouting at their kids, but who knows). And then, they had a pretty large van that didn’t really fit into the parking space allocated to them in our underground garage. When they parked there, I had to enter our car through the passenger’s door. That also was something we had to consider when we were buying a new car for us. It had to fit the parking space and be small enough not to interfere with the neighbors’ car. Well, not anymore!