1-Bed Country House with Convertible Attic in Rural Brittany – Holiday Home for €54,800



La Bazouge-du-Desert, Bretagne, 35420, France, La Bazouge-du-Désert (France)
1 Bedrooms · 0 Bathrooms · 62m² Floor area
€54,800
House
No parking
1 Bedrooms
0 Bathrooms
62m²
Garden
No pool
Not furnished
Description
Saturday morning in La Bazouge-du-Désert sounds like this: a wood fire ticking quietly in the kitchen insert, the smell of coffee cutting through cool Breton air, and birdsong coming in through a window that looks out over 462 square metres of your own garden. No neighbours at your elbow. Just countryside, quiet, and the kind of unhurried morning that most people only manage once a year on holiday — except here, it would be yours whenever you wanted it.
This compact stone country house sits in the northern Ille-et-Vilaine, the oldest corner of Brittany, in a rural commune that most visitors driving toward Saint-Malo never bother to slow down for. That's exactly the point. At €54,800, it's one of those rare entry points into genuine French rural property ownership — the kind of deal that doesn't appear often in a department where coastal prices have been climbing steadily and even inland villages are attracting more attention from buyers priced out of Normandy.
The ground floor is functional and liveable right now. A kitchen with a wood-burning insert fireplace anchors the space — this is the room you'll be in most, and in October when the temperature drops and the trees turn, it earns its place. The living room flows from there, with one bedroom and a shower room/WC completing the footprint at around 60 square metres of living space. It's honest, not fussy. Good condition means you can move straight in, run it as a bolt-hole, rent it out short-term, or use it as a base while you plan what comes next.
What comes next, potentially, is the attic. The first floor is an unconverted space of approximately 65 square metres — structurally there but requiring modifications to bring it into full use. That's a significant canvas. Done properly, it could add two more bedrooms and a bathroom, effectively doubling the habitable area and transforming this from a one-bed retreat into a property that could comfortably sleep a family of four or five. Local Breton craftsmen — artisans du bâtiment — are not difficult to find in this part of Ille-et-Vilaine, and conversion costs in rural France remain considerably more affordable than equivalent work in the UK or northern Europe.
The garden — 462 square metres total — gives the house breathing room. Enough for a terrace, a kitchen garden, and still space for children or a dog to have the run of the place. Electric heating supplements the wood insert, so the house is already set up for year-round use.
Now, about the location. La Bazouge-du-Désert is deep in the bocage country of northern Ille-et-Vilaine, close to the border with Normandy. The landscape here is the classic Breton interior: ancient hedgerows, sunken lanes called chemins creux, fields of wheat and dairy farms, and forests that date back centuries. It's genuinely rural — and for buyers who want the real France rather than a sanitised version of it, this part of Brittany delivers without apology.
The town of Fougères is the nearest significant hub, roughly 20 kilometres south. Its Saturday morning market on the Place du Marchix is the kind of market travel writers mean when they describe French markets — not a tourist performance, but a working market where locals buy their andouille, their camembert from Normandy, their cheeses and cider. The medieval château de Fougères, one of the largest fortified castles in Europe, rises above the lower town and is genuinely worth a morning of anyone's time. Victor Hugo visited. So did Honoré de Balzac. It has that kind of gravity.
Drive north for around 45 minutes and you hit the Côte d'Émeraude — the Emerald Coast — where the D168 brings you into Dinard with its Belle Époque villas and sandy beaches, and Saint-Malo sits just across the Rance estuary, its granite ramparts unchanged since corsairs walked them. The Rance estuary itself is worth exploring by kayak or on foot, and the tidal power station nearby is a quietly fascinating piece of engineering. Cancale, where the oyster beds still produce some of France's finest flat oysters — huîtres plates de Cancale — is under an hour from this house. You buy them straight off the boats at the Marché de la Criée and eat them standing on the quay with a squeeze of lemon and a glass of Muscadet.
Rennes, the regional capital, is around 50 kilometres to the south. It's a genuinely good city — young, lively, with a university that keeps the restaurant and bar scene in the historic quarter around Place des Lices permanently energised. The TGV from Rennes to Paris Montparnasse takes under 1 hour 30 minutes, which puts this property within comfortable weekend-escape distance of the French capital for Parisian buyers. For international buyers flying in, Rennes Bretagne Airport handles connections to London, Dublin, and Amsterdam, among others.
Brittany has distinct seasons, and all four of them have something to offer. Spring arrives gently here, with the lanes turning vivid green from late March. Summer in the interior is warm rather than scorching — highs in the mid-20s Celsius — while the coast provides reliably good swimming at the beaches around Saint-Cast-le-Guildo and Saint-Briac-sur-Mer. Autumn is arguably the finest season in this part of France: the forests around Fougères blaze, mushroom hunters appear in the lanes at dawn, and the Saturday markets fill up with pumpkins, walnuts, and wild boar from the hunt. Winter is cool and damp, but the wood fire makes the kitchen very easy to love.
For international buyers considering this as a holiday home or second residence in France, the practical picture is straightforward. France imposes no restrictions on foreign nationals purchasing property. Notaire fees run approximately 7–8% on top of the purchase price — budget around €3,800–4,400 on top of €54,800. The purchase process through a French notaire is well-established and transparent, and this price point keeps total acquisition costs comfortably under €60,000. Short-term rental income through platforms like Airbnb or Gîtes de France is viable in this region, particularly given proximity to the Breton coast and the growing number of visitors exploring the interior.
Key features at a glance:
- 1-bedroom stone country house in good, move-in ready condition
- 60 m² of current living space with kitchen, living room, bedroom, and shower room/WC
- Wood-burning insert fireplace in kitchen plus electric heating throughout
- Large convertible attic of approximately 65 m² — structural modifications required but potential to nearly double the living space
- Private garden of 462 m² with scope for terrace, vegetable garden, or outdoor dining
- Located in rural northern Ille-et-Vilaine, Brittany's oldest department
- 20 km from the medieval town and Saturday market of Fougères
- ~45 minutes from Saint-Malo, Dinard, and the Côte d'Émeraude
- Under an hour from the Cancale oyster beds and coastal beaches
- 50 km from Rennes with TGV to Paris in under 1h30
- Accessible via Rennes Bretagne Airport with routes to UK, Ireland, and the Netherlands
- Priced at €54,800 — a genuine entry-level second home opportunity in a rising regional market
- No restrictions for international buyers; standard notaire fees apply
- Strong short-term rental potential as a Breton gîte or holiday cottage
At this price, in this setting, with a convertible attic waiting for the right decision — this is the kind of property that rewards whoever moves on it first. If you've been looking for a second home in France that doesn't ask you to compromise on authenticity or spend a fortune to get started, it's time to take a closer look. Reach out through Homestra today to arrange a viewing or request the full property details. The fire won't light itself, but once it does, you'll understand exactly why people fall for this corner of Brittany and never quite let it go.
Details
- Amount of bedrooms
- 1
- Size
- 62m²
- Price per m²
- €884
- Garden size
- 462m²
- Has Garden
- Yes
- Has Parking
- No
- Has Basement
- No
- Condition
- good
- Amount of Bathrooms
- 0
- Has swimming pool
- No
- Property type
- House
- Energy label
Unknown
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