Second home in Collioure: the guide

Perpignan-Rivesaltes airport is about forty minutes away; Girona, in Spain, and Montpellier, about an hour and a half away, widen the choice of flights considerably. By train, Perpignan TGV station is about 4 h 50 from Paris and about 1 h 20 from Barcelona, then some twenty minutes of regional train lead to Collioure, which has its own stop on the coastal line: a rare advantage for a village of this size, and decisive for short stays without a car.

Once there, the village is explored on foot. The car becomes a constraint in the lanes of the old centre, where parking is scarce, and a necessity on the heights. Perpignan, half an hour away, provides the hospital, the secondary schools and the large shops. For a second home, access decides how often you stay: the simpler it is, the more the house is used.

The right property depends on how often you stay and how you feel about stairs. In the old Catalan building, access, damp walls, parking and works permits in a protected area decide the real cost of an appealing house; on the heights, it is the slope, the access and the land; in Port-Vendres, the life of the port all year round.

The real question of a second home is the time between stays. In Collioure, the damp winter tests the roofs and the schist walls hold the moisture: a closed house must be aired, checked after every bout of tramontane or heavy rain, and followed by a craftsman used to Catalan building. Before the offer, you need to know who will keep the key, open the shutters, collect the post and look after the garden. On the heights, in a zone exposed to fire, brush clearance within 50 m of the buildings is compulsory, whether the house is occupied or not.

In the small co-ownerships of the centre, run on old rules and sometimes without a professional managing agent, absence must be prepared too: who maintains the staircase, the utilities and the shared roof, who warns the owner of a leak. A simple, sound house can be managed from afar; an appealing but fragile house is costly to watch over.

The market has two peaks, spring and September; summer slows viewings without easing the pressure on supply, and the late season can open opportunities on properties that have been on sale for several months. Home Select builds the search remotely, with its network of 15,000 partners: a brief by video call, constant monitoring, qualification on documents, video pre-viewings steered with the seller’s agent, then a single trip for the decisive viewings, in May-June or September-October, when logistics are easier.