Idling through Instagram, I chanced upon the ultimate in FOMO (“fear of missing out”) for post-Brexit Brits. An account called Cheap Houses EU, launched during the coronavirus summer of 2020, when travel was either impossible or off-puttingly difficult, and the whole world was living vicariously through their screens. Promising “Europe’s cheapest and dreamiest houses just waiting to be bought!”, the account showcases delectable properties with price tags that rarely go above €150,000 (£128,000).
Meanwhile, Bargain Homes Abroad, an Instagram account that was also born in July 2020, presents a smorgasbord of sun-drenched, quaint abodes from all across the continent. They are also unbelievably cheap, particularly in comparison with astronomically priced UK properties.
Here at home, £48,000 will barely get you a garage in Surbiton. The equivalent amount of around €55,000 will buy: a characterful townhouse in the Charente region in south-western France; a typically Spanish rural villa among the hills of Granada; or a three-bedroom retreat with spectacular views over Lake Turano, an hour’s drive from Rome. A two-bedroom flat in Purley will set you back £140,000 – instead, how about a green-shuttered, terracotta-roofed hideaway in a Corfu village? A £127,000 bungalow in Grimsby, or a whitewashed townhouse 40 minutes from Málaga? The choice is yours.
Well, the choice was yours. While these accounts present a lifestyle once freely accessible to any Brit with the funds, Brexit has made a new life in the EU a very different proposition. The limit of 90 days out of every 180 on stays in the Schengen Area has put the expat experience on an entirely different footing. If you want to stay for longer than that, then EU country visas can be had, so long as you don’t mind jumping through a lot of bureaucratic hoops.
The freedom of coming and going as you please is gone, but we are still able to dream.
“Over the last three and a half years, I’ve seen Brits more than double as the overall percentage of my audience,” says Shannon Acton, the woman behind Bargain Homes Abroad. An American who fell in love with all things European on her first visit over 22 years ago, Acton launched the account in lockdown to share her passion for beautiful but affordable EU properties. It immediately caught on with travel-starved North Americans and Brits alike, and now has more than 125,000 followers. Acton says there has been “a notable recent surge” of interest from the UK. “I wouldn’t be surprised to see them soon surpass Canadians to be the second largest following (behind Americans).
“Why suffer another brutal British winter when you can work from your own sunny little terrace in Italy, France, Spain or Portugal?” she asks. Another driver is the particularly British idea of escaping to warmer climes, an idea that’s ingrained in the popular consciousness and that manifests itself in the popularity of programmes such as Amanda & Alan’s Italian Job, A Place in the Sun, and A New Life in the Sun.
But for Acton, her greatest passion is for the aesthetics of the “old-world inspired European lifestyle”, and this is clearly still catnip to us Brits. “Sometimes I might throw everyday conveniences and practicality by the wayside in favour of a rustic stone house in the Tuscan hills with original beamed ceilings, tile floors, and a fireplace as its main heat source. But, then again, that’s also part of buying into the fantasy, right?” she says.
Sophia Deboick is a freelance writer who specialises in music and cultural icons
