The property market on Spain’s Costas has, if you want to be charitable, been in freefall for nearly three years now but there are promising signs that the unbearable pain in Spain may soon be over – sort of.

Spanish-English developer Taylor Wimpey de España tells me this week that the Brits are back – at last – and the sighs of relief at the company’s Malaga, Alicante and Mallorca offices are palpable.

But the company says it’s only prime properties that are attracting British buyers and usually only in upmarket locations in Majorca and the Costa del Sol. As is always true in recessions, recovery always takes place first in the safest and most familiar markets.

We may have put our dreams of a Spanish home to one side during the recession but Taylor Wimpey España tells me this summer has seen an 80% yearly increase in enquiries from Brits desperate for the Spanish lifestyle including the sunshine, golf courses and Mediterranean beaches. And it’s no longer just the retirees heading to the sun, so far this year 80% of Taylor Wimpey buyers were aged between 30 and 55 years old.

I talked to Victor Sage at Taylor Wimpey, who told me: “Buyers have been waiting for the market to bottom out before they invest. In premier destinations, like Marbella, this is without doubt now the case hence the spike in interest and serious buyers”.

Victor explained that there is oversupply in certain areas of Spain but it is a localised problem and changes from town to town; “the best units in the best resorts will always sell” he assures me.

Prices are 20-25% lower than 2007 but Victor said that if the current demand continues it will push up prices, he thinks that “for those who have been sitting on the fence, sensibly watching the market, now is an excellent time to buy to make the most of the reduced prices and excellent property on offer”.

With less disposable income our property budgets have reduced since 2007 when 45% of us were spending between €250,000 and €350,000 on our Spanish homes. Now 72% of us are on a lower budget of between €150,000 and €250,000 with 60% looking for two bed room properties.

For more information on Taylor Wimpey’s Spanish developments for sale visit their website

The city of Marrakech in Morroco has pulled in the A-list crowd for over seven decades now starting with clothes designer Yves St Laurent in the 1960s  – who owned a villa there – through to the Beckhams, who holidayed at its Amanjena luxury resort  in 2004.

The villas at the Baglioni Marrkech resort are being constructed by global design firm Yoo which Jagger has also designed for elsewhere including in New York, Dubai, the Cotswolds and Manchester and which in the past has also signed up Phillip Starck and Sophie Conran to design interiors.

Jade’s Marrkech properties include four and five bedroom villas between 665m2 and 815m2 which come with secure parking, large gardens, terrace, swimming pool and the interiors, as you might expect, have been given a strong Moroccan flavour by Jagger, who works with her design partner and up-and-coming architect, Tom Bartlett.

The 34-acre resort in which the villas sit includes 72-room boutique hotel, a spa and fitness club, restaurant as well as the villas.

Pooled resources: the terrace swimming area at one of the villas

And owners of the Residences, as the resort prefers to call the properties, will get more than just Jagger’s taste in interiors. On tap will be all the services that guests staying at the resort would enjoy so no need to cook despite the villa’s gorgeous kitchens (there’s an in-house cook) or worry about  stocking your cupboards (there’s a shopping service), organise excursions (via a travel arranger) or drive anywhere (there will be chauffeurs on tap).

The Baglioni Group, which owns hotels and resorts all over the world including one in London, is banking on Morocco’s much predicted race up the tourist rankings – particularly as Marrkech is its most famous attraction.

In July this year the number of tourists rose by 10 percent compared to the same month last year, and Morocco is fast approaching the ambitious target of 10 million tourist visits a year set by its modernising king, Mohammed VI.

As a million or more TV breakfasts balanced on a nation of knees so the second day of ITV’s much hyped Daybreak was rattling through this morning, carried largely by the nation’s favourite celibate couple, Christine Bleakley and Adrian Chiles. Both were looking flush, I thought, with the  millions ITV paid them to jump ship from the BBC’s quirky evening magazine programme The One Show.

But I don’t think Daybreak’s bleary-eyed audience will get the duo’s brand of early-evening humour and the allure of The One Show was its thought-provoking magazine-style features. But let’s give them a chance to blossom and develop.

Nevertheless one thing I can’t let pass was their report from Spain about the property market which, rather glumly, the show’s reporter said is now more Holiday Homes from Hell than A Place in the Sun.

Daybreak’s report chose its angle carefully and focused only on the most vulnerable of the British who moved to Spain, the ones who were always going to need an earned income to survive and who have been hit hard by the downturn.

The first to arrive in Spain during during the late 1950s were adventurous, well-off and usually bohemian home buyers but it wasn’t until Spain turned into the favoured holiday destination for millions of us that owning property on the Costas became a mainstream, discuss-down-the-pub type habit.

But the problems began when the most vulnerable started to move south; the ones interviewed on Daybreak this morning. These are the expats who retired early or moved their young families to Spain in the belief that they’d find jobs despite not speaking the lingo, having much money or possessing the skills needed to make a living on the Costas.

Each story has its own idiosyncrasies and some people have just been unlucky but it’s these type of ex-pats who are the ones moving back home in droves. The type of work they once relied on to keep them in paella and patatas bravas are now scarce – both the tourism and property markets are struggling to survive the recession and these were the traditional areas for unskilled Brits to find a job.

But one thing Daybreak didn’t mention is the 150,000 or more retirees who live in Spain and who – a NatWest bank survey revealed last week – are doing just fine.

The bank revealed that seven out of ten retired Britons living overseas were happy with their new country, and that one in five – or 20% – had returned back to the UK. I wonder if Adrian and Christine will get round to interviewing them?