BRAND NEW IN SAN MIGUEL DE SALINAS, 2 BEDROOM BUNGALOW WITH ROOF TERRACE. MOVE IN CONDITION, GREAT LOCATION CLOSE TO THE SALT LAKES AND AMENITIES. 
As if the credit crunch and the impending recession weren't enough, the downside for Brits wanting to buy overseas has been compounded by the plummeting value of the pound.
In just 12 months, sterling's value has slipped from €1.45 to under €1.20 - a fall of almost 20%. Against the dollar, the decline has been even more dramatic. As recently as July you could get $2 for every pound; by late November that had fallen to under $1.50.
Psychologically, it's a serious deterrent for buyers, as it means you could be paying significantly more for the same property than you would have a year ago. What's more, the cost of living in most overseas countries has also gone up accordingly - so that pint of beer, restaurant meal and weekly grocery shop will all be more expensive.
There are a few countries outside the dollar and the euro where the exchange rate pain has not been quite so profound - TURKEY springs to mind - but by and large, overseas homes are less of a bargain than they used to be.
So what can you do about it? One option - if you believe that the pound will make a recovery - is to take out a mortgage in the local currency. Say you want to buy an apartment in France or Spain that costs €200,000, and you take out a Euro-denominated loan for €150,000. Then only the €50,000 deposit will suffer from the conversion at a poor exchange rate, and if sterling recovers in a year's time you could potentially refinance the property at a more attractive conversion rate. This works especially well if you will be earning rental income in the local currency to pay the mortgage interest; but it is a high risk strategy - after all, sterling could decline still further.
Another option is to look in markets where property prices have fallen significantly. Spain is the obvious example; in spite of official figures which purport to show that property prices are still rising, evidence on the ground is that prices have already fallen by around 20% on average, and with many developers on the Costa del Sol or Costa Blanca in financial trouble you could get an even bigger discount, wiping out the effect of sterling's falling value. But don't buy just on the discount - after all, too many properties in Spain were over-priced in the first place.
Ask us how to save money on your new mortgage and buy smart in 2009.
Nigel Salmon - Girasol Homes 44 1974 299055
Tickets for the raffle cost 50 euros (63 dollars) and they will go on sale on Wednesday, a spokesman for developer Grupo de Empresas Rob told AFP.
The company hopes to sell 7,000 raffle tickets for each apartment which will be awarded, meaning it would raise 350,000 euros per dwelling.
If the developer does not sell at least 6,500 tickets for a particular apartment, the raffle will not go ahead for that property and participants will receive a refund.
The raffle, which will be supervised by a notary, will be held in the coming months, the spokesman said.
All of the apartments -- which are between 50 and 90-square metres (970-square feet) -- are all located on the same street in the Barcelona suburb of Santa Coloma de Gramenet.
After a decade-long boom, Spain's property market began to slump last year due to rising interest rates, oversupply and tougher lending conditions introduced in the wake of the global credit crunch.
Property sales declined 28.2 percent during the first nine months of this year compared with the same period of 2007, national statistics institute INE said last week.
The drop in sales has led developers to come up with innovative promotions to try to sell properties.
In October another Spanish developer, Salsa Immobiliaria, offered a one bedroom apartment to anyone who bought one of its four-bedroom townhouses near the beach in Terrazas de Miraflores on the Costa del Sol.
In May a man who could not meet mortgage payments on his apartment near Madrid tried to organise a raffle to unload it but he had to call off the contest because he failed to get the paperwork in order.
