If you’ve been following my Greek odyssey in the Home section for the past year, I’m here to tell you that it’s over at last. The crumbling four-room farmhouse in Crete we bought last year is finished. Though when you buy an old house on a tight budget there is probably no actual end to the work. And though I know we are going to have a wonderful summer, right now it’s raining. And the roof is leaking. In three places.

Which is why I want to sign off from The Sunday Times by letting you in on some of the things I’ve learnt from my Cretan property venture.

I didn’t realise it at the time, but when we bought our house we were contributing to what estate agents here are calling “the English boom”: an influx of Brits snapping up old houses and building plots in villages all over the largest of the Greek islands. It started about six years ago, apparently, and demand has climbed steadily ever since.

But prices are rising steadily too. Five years ago you could buy a habitable two-bedroom village house for as little as £18,500. These days you’d be lucky to find anything for less than £46,000 — although this is cheap compared with the equivalent in bustling Iraklion, Rethymnon or Chania, where a six-room flat can cost as much as £152,000.

There has been a matching expansion in estate agencies. Two years ago there were only two agents in the pretty little seaside town of Kalives. Today there are 10. Many estate agents also double as property developers, so the person who sells you your house may end up organising the plumbing too.

The number of builders has also mushroomed. This has helped keep a brake on building costs, which have remained steady throughout the boom. A new two-bed, two-bath house with a tiled roof, tiled floors, garden and central heating would cost about £80,000 to build today — pretty much the same as three years ago.

What has increased is the price of land to build it on. A generous 1,000sq m site with a sea view costs about £33,000. Add the two together, plus the costs of fees and planning permissions, and you could have a spanking new house overlooking the sea for less than £140,000.

“There are fewer and fewer old houses for sale, but there are plenty of building plots,” one estate agent told me. “The prices start at about £13,000 for a small plot, but most of the cheap plots are outside the villages, so you end up paying extra for the water and electricity connections. And you need a special forestry permit to build in open country, which can take up to six months.”

It’s usually cheaper to renovate an existing old house, because you don’t have to worry about building permission, road access or mains connections. But it’s no good eyeing up picturesque ruins, then popping into the local kafenion (cafe) to ask if they’re for sale. Even if you’re lucky enough to track down the owner, you’re unlikely to be offered a fair price. This is not because people are trying to cheat you, but because the boom is so recent people often have an inflated idea of what their aunt’s old house is worth. Every estate agent I interviewed had houses on their files they weren’t attempting to sell, because the owners would not agree a realistic asking price.

So what do you do? Having learnt the hard way, here’s my advice:

Find an experienced local estate agent who has been operating for at least five years. They all speak English, and you can be confident the advice you’re getting about permits, fees and taxes is accurate. And they are more likely to have contacts with local architects and builders.

When choosing a builder, ask to see other properties they’ve worked on. Talk to the owners and find out what problems they had. Beware of builders without a track record. The property boom means that lots of inexperienced people are setting up in the business.

Don’t pay big money upfront for building work. Reputable companies will expect a 10% deposit, but subsequent payments will be for work done. There’s talk that some property developers are engaged in a kind of pyramid selling, demanding substantial down payments, which they use to buy land for future houses.

Explore Property

• Buying & Selling

• New Homes

• Overseas

• Interiors

• Investment

• Gardens

• Cool In Your Code

• Specials

• First-time buyer

• Rental Market

Times recommends

• Second homes: credit crunch casualty or money-spinner?
• How I built my own sliding house
• Top 10 incentives for house buyers