“You still have to build in a similar style to fit in with the resort, but this way I got a bigger villa,” says Dyoss. “Paying for my own architect added 6.5% to the costs, including a pool designer and a quantity surveyor, but this way we also got more choice when it came to the layout, tiles in the bathroom, wood floors and so on. The quality is very good over here and 15% cheaper than in the UK.”

The developer, Lanitis, has submitted plans to build two more resorts, one near Pissouri — a pretty seaside village midway between Limassol and Paphos — whose population is already 70% British, and the other closer to Limassol.

Across the gorge from Aphrodite Hills, the island’s largest developer, Aristo, is building the Secret Valley golf resort, set in a 2,500-acre nature reserve. If permitted, the company will build up to 1,500 apartments and 1,500 villas over the next seven to 10 years. Flats will start from £240,000 and go up to £1m-plus for a custom-built villa.

“Golf is the way of the future,” says Themis Mavromichalos, sales director for Secret Valley. “But we are also building an Olympic-sized swimming pool and a tennis and squash academy.”

Property prices on Cyprus have been rising at about 20% a year since the island joined the European Union in 2004, but can such growth be sustained? Stuart Law, managing director of Assetz, a specialist property investment firm, believes they can, at least in the short term. “Prices are still considerably lower than in France or Spain — as much as 30% less,” he says. “Prices rose by 15% in 2005, and I expect the same this year. Entry to the euro in 2007-08 will pre-empt further growth.”

Etychia Christodoulou, general manager of Lordos Properties, says: “Cyprus is no longer cheap. It used to be popular with retiring couples, but now we are seeing more families. The buyers are getting younger.”

Lordos Properties started out renovating old stone houses, but Christodoulou admits there are few left now. The firm is building 150 properties across the island, and is starting to break into markets at Ayia Napa and Protaras, where developers are testing the water hoping to appeal to the British “value for money” market. Prices at Lordos Sunrise Beach Villas on the seafront at Protaras start at £187,000 for a two-bed villa and £235,000 for three-bedrooms and a private pool.

Lordos is also starting to convert some dated and now half-empty hotels along the coast into furnished apartments, such as the Ermitage on the seafront at Limassol. These flats have laminated floors, stainless-steel kitchen appliances and plasma television screens. The penthouse just sold for £1.2m.

The buying process in Cyprus is relatively straightforward. It is advisable to visit the island independently, rather than allow a developer to fund your trip, so that you can visit your choice of agents and areas.

Chris Wilkinson, 63, and his girlfriend, Jane Davis, 47, had been visiting the island for 15 years before they decided to buy. “We were mooching around and came across the most beautiful site,” says Wilkinson, who runs the Mullion Cove hotel in Cornwall with Davis.

Planning permission for the 100-acre site, sold off by a local farmer, allowed only eight building plots. Four of them, including Wilkinson and Davis’s, have been built on, while the remaining four properties are still under construction.

The couple bought their plot, 600ft above sea level, behind the Coral Bay Marina north of Paphos in 2004. Wilkinson estimates the villa, with its 180-degree sea views, cost just under £597,000, including landscaping and a pool.

Wilkinson and Davis are proud of their achievement but are selling up, as they feel the four-bed property and its Ç-acre plot are too much to look after. They are selling the villa themselves for £780,000, to take advantage of the booming market, but plan to stay on in Cyprus.

“There is a colony of Brits here,” says Wilkinson. “But it is easy to avoid the overbuilt areas. You can still find the old Cyprus, with small squares and tavernas, where the ladies are dressed in black.”

Times recommends

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