Spanish property prices fell in 13 of the country’s 50 provinces in the thid-quarter, signalling an end to the decade-long boom. The Times

hundreds of thousands of Britons own homes in the provinces of Valencia, where prices fell by 1.1%, Alicante, where prices fell 0.3%, Jaén (0.7%) and Cádiz (0.4%).

More than 1 million Britons are thought to live most or all of the year in Spain and many others have invested in Spanish property.

A construction boom in Spain is producing about 800,000 homes a year, but analysts believe there is demand for only about 500,000 of those.