France Expat Forum

antifreeze
Joined 2016
Posts: 50

7 years ago

moving to Nice

7 years ago

Hi,

My wife and I live in Oakland California, just across the border from Berkeley. In a couple of years both of us will have retired. Our plan is to spend our retirement in Europe, preferable in Nice, or perhaps a village near it.

We travel a fair amount, twice a year on the average, and more often than not we find ourselves in Europe. Our favorite countries seem to be Britain, France and Italy. At least those are the countries that we’ve visited most frequently. Regarding Nice, we have visited it only once and then only for a few days. But we enjoyed it a lot: beautiful setting, great weather, the sea, close to mountains, close to Italy and Switzerland.

As you can imagine, we have lots of questions. To us the most important ones involve cost of living expenses and housing.

We have a middle-class lifestyle here in Oakland, and it would be nice to continue that lifestyle in Europe. My first question pertains to the accuracy of the cost-of-living calculators in Expatistan and Numbeo. Are they reliable? Any complaints?

When we retire, my wife and I expect that in addition to savings, we will have a gross annual income of approximately six figures, plus or minus a couple of thousand. Is this enough for a middle class life style in Nice?

We would like to rent a flat for our first year or two as we familiarize ourselves with that area of the world before deciding to buy a place. If we had our druthers, we would rent a three bedroom, two bathroom flat. As of now we’re not sure if we want it furnished or not. Given our income, is this possible?

And finally, we concerned about how we go about renting a flat. Everything we’ve seen on the net, even labeled “long term”, seems to be vacation rentals with very little available annually. So, I guess the question is how do we go about finding a place to rent? I assume it will have to be done there, but beyond that, I have little of no clue.

Thank you for any help you might give.

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