WITH around five million British expats already living abroad, the dream of owning a home overseas remains as strong as ever for some, despite soaring debts.

However, the credit crunch is slashing our spending power, and our ability to borrow to fill the gap.

Portal, PropertyIndex.com, says Britons homehunting abroad have had to trim their budgets by over £50,000 in the last year alone, with the average price of homes enquired about now standing at £199,284, against £253,435 in March 2008.

Lee Bramzell, chief executive of PropertyIndex.com, says during the boom years, owning a home abroad became a mass market and that dream is not going to disappear overnight.

“Buyers are aware that property prices have fallen across the globe over the last 12 months, and they are determined to take advantage of this by securing the same type of property for considerably less than they would have paid a year ago.

“Despite their limited budgets, buyers still while away the hours poring over property they can’t afford, with the average price of property viewed on our site standing at more than £267,000 – nearly £70,000 more than they are looking to spend.”

Despite the downturn, developers still have tens of thousands of holiday homes to be filled and for those who have the capital, this might be a good time to buy.