CRETE, as a football manager might say, is an island of two halves. The west of the island is going the way of Spain, with large developments completed or under way, but the less wealthy east end is establishing a very different identity.

The area around Siteia in east Crete is where north Europeans (the majority of whom are British) buy if they want to learn the language, make friends with the locals and eat Cretan. “They are individualistic buyers. They enjoy the wildness of the landscape and are happy to make their own entertainment,” says Joy Hodson, the sales manager of Siteia-based Property on Crete. “The locals welcome buyers because their villages are dying. Thousands of traditional houses are in ruins. Selling up helps parents to fund the purchase of an urban apartment in Iraklion or Athens for their children.”

The houses are small, rustic and cheap. Of the 250 properties on the books of Property on Crete, most need renovation. For £27,000 you can buy an 11-room stone house in Stavromenos, just south of Siteia, with a sea view, garden, outside oven and a mountain spring. Part of it is habitable, but the rest needs renovation, including the construction of a bathroom and lavatory.

Buyers should reckon on spending the same amount again on repairs as they did on the house. But Julie Richardson, from Rutland, found that the repairs to her £54,000 house in Ahladia, near Siteia, cost only £10,000. “West Crete was expensive, with too many developments,” she says. “This area is untouched by tourism and the people are so friendly. But prices are shooting up.”

There are plans for Siteia airport to accept international flights. For now, though, visitors use the airports at Iraklion or Chania or travel via Athens, which has year-round daily flights to Iraklion, then Siteia and on to Rhodes. Given this improving access, it is perhaps unsurprising that work has started on a 6,000-acre, £543 million development at Cape Sideros in the northeast of the island. Cavo Sidero, an eco-tourism golf and conference centre, will have six “villages” and 7,000 beds; it aims to protect the flora and fauna and manage rubbish and sewage in an ecological way. Time will tell what effect this will have on the friendship that has sprung up between newcomers and locals.

For buying advice and an analysis of emerging property markets, go to: timesonline.co.uk/overseasproperty

To search for properties in Crete on propertyfinder.com click here

To find Cretian properties on properazzi.com click here

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