Buying in Spain? Be careful, be very careful! That's about the best advice I can give, after my routine break on "De Costa" and listening to various opinions from owners who live there.

For a start, the Spanish property market is static. That's a diplomatic way of saying there's not much upward movement in prices. In some areas, prices are plunging. On Monday, a builder told me of a property outside Granada which had finally been sold, dropping from €250,000 to €185,000.

Some drop, but as the builder said, it was sell or still have "Se Vende" stuck on the terrace outside - for God knows how long more. As the sign hung for two years, the owners took the hit, took the money and ran. It's a similar story along "De Costa" generally.

For instance, in one mountain town, the only estate agent, an ex-pat, made a good living for a few years, dealing in small fincas (farms) with buildings "needing reform"(!)

He sold mainly to British and Irish, desiring the mountainy, organic life.

With a new tar road and EU dosh providing better access, the many new owners set to work with a will, often engaging the local ex-pat community of skilled trades, brickies etc, to make lovely homes in "De Montana". If you have ever been in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada, you will know the term "stunning views" is deserved.

Last week the estate agent made his last sale in that area - by disposing of his own home. I gather he got a reasonable, not good, price for it, but the new owners, expecting after-sales service of a contacts list for brickies, sparks, plasterers etc, heard only his "ansa-fone" saying he was no longer in business.

When estate agents are moving or changing career, it's rather like the geese hung in cages on the walls of Troy, squawking at distant approaches of the ravaging army.

Or indeed, the way your own pet animals will sense bad weather ahead of the Met Service and curl up on the couch.

As an exercise, two friends rang another estate agent on the same day, one offering a property for sale, the other enquiring for a property. Unknown to the agent, each described loosely the same property, location and price range. To first "seller" the agent advised a lower figure, if a sale was to be likely. To the second caller, a potential "buyer" the estate agent quoted an even lower figure.

That says a lot. Even more telling are the explanations why the bounce has gone out of the Spanish market. The most common theory is the "emergence of eastern Europe as a holiday destination" , to use that trite theory of lazy economists, who argue that buying, say, a two-bedroom apartment in Bulgaria for €40,000 knocks Spain into a losing place.

There's some merit in that, as one could cite similar in Romania, Czech Republic and Turkey.

Add the cheap flights and the Ryanair access, plus an hour-long safari overland from a defunct military airport to make you feel you've earned a bargain - and, yes, there are cheaper properties as a market factor in the gloss going off property in Spain.

But there is another factor, for which the Spanish planning chaos bears some responsibility. That is the widespread media coverage of cherished homes going under the bulldozers, to make way for massive new roads and bridges, all part of the EU-funded "infrastructure" which is colonising with concrete the previously "remote" parts of Spain.

The official reasoning is the homes were built "without proper planning permission". Define "proper" and "planning" to the thousands of heartbroken ex-pats who bought in good faith, took legal advice and plunged their future on the Spanish soil and - in many cases - on the Spanish way of Life.

Buying in Spain? Be careful, be very careful.