WHEN it’s tipping down in the UK, it’s about 22C (71F) in Morocco – and it stays like that all winter. No wonder Winston Churchill said “Morocco was to me a revelation”. The British are invading Morocco in increasing numbers, especially since easyJet and Ryanair started flying there recently, and now only France supplies the country with more visitors. Restoring an old riad, however, is not for the fainthearted and I suspect you would need youth, enthusiasm and a lot of determination – as well as plenty of money – to take on a makeover project, especially at long distance. The latest developments in and around Marrakesh are pitched at wealthy buyers who just want to buy and use the place immediately.

And as prices in Marrakesh get higher by the week, so investors are spilling out towards Fez, where homes can be bought for about 50 per cent less. Even in Fez, though, property prices are going up by 20-30 per cent every six months, especially at the lower end of the market.

Morocco is not a new market, but it’s a relative debutante compared with long-established ones such as France and Spain, and the bonus about going to either of those is that you don’t have to fly to get there – you can salve your green conscience about global warming by taking the train, which also means you avoid all that hanging around in airports, which is both costly and boring. The new rail link from St Pancras to the Channel Tunnel will make mainland Europe much more accessible for property buyers and the market in northern France is expected to be the probable beneficiary (see pages 24-25). Lille, with its excellent shops and bustling restaurant scene, is particularly tempting. Normandy, Brittany and the Pas de Calais will all become much more manageable for short breaks but agents are also tipping Poitiers, the Côte d’Azur and Avignon.

Cities all over Europe, it seems, are enjoying an investment boom from foreign buyers for one simple reason: the restoration drama is over. “People have moved on from tumbledown villas in the Tuscan hills,” says Rupert Fawcett, Italy specialist with Knight Frank International. “Now they want a second home on a gated estate or a flat in a city they can reach for the weekend.”

Florence is doing well, says Fawcett, because it’s a compact and walkable city and it’s within striking distance of so much more – Pisa, Lucca, and San Gimignano, which are very beautiful. Florence also gets the female vote because of the quality of the shopping. All the big hitters, Jean-Paul Gaultier, Calvin Klein, Ferragamo and Prada, are there. Fawcett says: “Once people wanted a big villa somewhere, but things have changed, especially for cash-rich, time-poor professionals. Couples especially want plenty of short breaks to somewhere with good restaurants, museums and culture.”

Languedoc was once considered the poor man’s Provence, if it was considered at all, but as we discover on page 26, there are reasonably priced and thoughtfully done new developments that blend in with medieval villages rather than becoming ghettos full of foreigners.

If your idea of hell is other people, take a few tips from Jack Barker, who has tracked down a clutch of islands, some of them remarkably cheap, where you can have absolute power over who you’ll be mixing with (see page 31).

Perhaps most important of all, get as much professional advice as you can and make sure you plan ahead. Increasing numbers of elderly Britons who retired to Spain are struggling to make ends meet (see page 35), so think long and hard before giving up a foothold on the British property ladder.

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