Second home in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence: the guide

The old centre offers the village house: deep, reworked over the centuries, sometimes arranged around a patio, with life on foot and the Wednesday market at the door. It is the second home without heavy upkeep, which locks and reopens easily; it is also scarce and counted, and what sells often goes before the listing. The Nostradamus quarter extends this life on foot with a garden: town houses and low buildings, calm without giving up the shops.

The mas is the other use. At the foot of the Alpilles, facing the ridge, or on the road to Maussane, in the plain, it gathers the family around its land, its plane-tree drives and its enclosed courtyard; in return it needs caretaking and attentive eyes all year.

The real question of a second home is the time between stays. In the old centre, walls of stone and lime raise the question of damp: rising damp, badly applied sealed renders and shrinkage cracks do slow damage in a closed house. Ventilate, keep frost-free, have someone call in regularly: remote management relies here on craftsmen and concierge services used to foreign owners, provided the property was chosen with its cost of absence read before the offer.

The mas adds its own constraints: upkeep of the land and garden, the pool and its compulsory safety device, the non-mains drainage of the hamlets, inspected by the SPANC, the tiled roof to watch and, in areas exposed to forest fire, brush clearance compulsory over 50 metres around buildings, whether the house is occupied or not. Home Select builds this logic of absence into the selection; these items, like the works, are costed before committing.

The market starts after the holidays and is decided in spring: from March to June, the properties people want to live in by summer change hands, often off-market. July and August belong to visitors and terraces, the September rentrée reopens the files; summer also separates genuine sellers from owners testing the water. Mas and estates circulate through notaires, caretakers and family networks before they are photographed: Home Select keeps this watch, led by its management, with a network of 15,000 partners who flag properties before any listing, and the watch starts in winter, with the brief.

The main pitfall is planning. Around Glanum and at the foot of the massif, within the Alpilles regional nature park and under the landscape directive covering the massif, an extension, a pool or a shutter colour is discussed at length: what exists must have been authorised, and what you plan must be possible. Home Select runs the search remotely: brief by video call, vetting on documents, video pre-viewings steered with the seller’s agent, price set against comparable DVF sales, then negotiation, securing and coordination of the notaire. You travel only for the decisive viewings, grouped into a single trip. The taxation of a second home falls to the notaire and a tax adviser.