It’s the great British dream: a home in the sun, somewhere to escape to and relax, that also proves to be a brilliant financial investment. But where to buy? Spain is overcrowded, France is too expensive — but flights to Crete, where you can pick up a stone ruin for less than £25,000 and villas for £80,000, are filling up with British househunters.

“The growing number of second homes owned by Brits in Crete was a key factor in starting flights to the capital, Iraklion,” says John Morgan, commercial director of GB Airways, a British Airways franchise that started direct flights to Crete in May. They plan to double flights to four a week from March next year. “When launching new flights, second-home ownership is definitely a key factor.”

There has always been a trickle of British buyers to the island, most moving out to start up a business after falling in love with Crete, if not a Cretan, while on holiday. EU nationals have been able to buy freehold property in Greece since 1991. Five years ago there were five estate agents in the Chania area; now there are 25.

Most sell off-plan flats and villas strung out along the north coast from Chania to Agios Nikolaos. Hellenic Homes has 100 flats and villas available, from £40,600 for a studio. “More than 80% of buyers are British,” says Marcos Yiannikakis, marketing manager for Hellenic Homes. “Half are looking for a cheaper version of Spain, the other half have fallen in love with Crete.”

Two of the island’s largest developers, Cretan Traditional Homes and New Century, which between them have more than 250 plots and properties for sale, campaign for dominance with ever-larger, ever-brighter sale boards. Prices range from just over £50,000 for a two-bed property to £165,000 for a three-bed villa in Plaka with a pool.

Charles Weston-Baker, of Savills, says Crete is like Spain was 15 years ago, but with “only one golf course”. He is selling Theseus Beach Village, the island’s first gated community. A one-bedroom flat costs £90,000; prices go up to £490,000 for a three-bed villa. All the one-bedroom flats have sold.

So will Crete be the next Spain — and, if so, can it avoid the overdevelopment of the Spanish Costas? One reason that it is unlikely to reach the epidemic proportions of southern Spain is the longer flight — almost four hours — compared with just under three to Malaga, and the fact that direct flights run only from March to October.

The other is that many more Brits are venturing inland to snap up a bargain. Turning their back on the busy resorts, buyers are venturing up twisting pockmarked tracks, past flocks of roaming goats and roadside shrines, looking for houses to renovate in traditional Cretan villages.

There are stories of shepherds selling a hovel and the next day swapping their battered old pick-up for a new BMW, but many more Brits are becoming good neighbours, sharing raki (the local fire brew) at a village kafenion, struggling to speak Greek.

Joanne and John Chidgey, 46 and 44, from Oxhey, near Bushey in Hertfordshire, are putting the finishing touches to their converted olive mill in Kounali. They bought the ruin, a 15-minute drive from Milatos, for £37,000 in 2001, and have spent more than £100,000 on the renovation. ()

The Chidgeys first visited Crete more than 20 years ago, when they stayed in Elounda, then a tiny fishing village with two tavernas, not the chichi resort of today, and spent their honeymoon in the pretty Venetian-Turkish harbour of Chania. Two years ago, they began to hunt for a second home. They looked at Florida and Spain but returned to Crete to find a house they could retire to.

“We always knew we’d come back,” says Joanne. “Sometimes Crete can look a bit shoddy, but scratch the surface and go inland, and the people are really friendly.”

“The house was just a pile of bricks, really. There was no roof,” says John. “But we heard the goat bells and looked towards the sea and back at the snow-capped mountains and that was it.” Adds Joanne:

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