Germany's Majorcan dream of paradise: white sandy beaches and endless blue skies

The past three years saw a change in the property market on the island, which was once dominated by buyers from her own country.

A crackdown by Berlin on tax cheats investing in overseas property, combined with three years of economic stagnation, however, either deterred Germans from investing in that second home in a quiet Majorcan village or made existing residents think of selling up.

"Now I would say in the past two or three years, 80 percent of buyers were British and they are buying the more expensive houses," says Hirsche, of  Profi Konzept estate agency in south-west Majorca.

"I think there was some insecurity in the market amongst Germans," she said.

However, Hirsche believes that in the last six months, as things at home have slowly started to pick up again, German buyers are returning. Some observers also point to the boom in budget airfares as helping to underpin new interest in Majorca.

Jan Westwood, of home buying agency County Homesearch, agrees; she thinks the much-vaunted exodus of Germans was no more than a "storm in a tea cup".

She believes the market has stabilised and more Germans are coming back to buy now in what is often called Germany's 17th state with the island fitting the German dream of paradise: long white sandy beaches and endless blue skies.

But then, Germany's colonisation of Majorca has been underway for some time, raising concerns among some Majorcans about the 'Germanisation' of their island.

Germans already own about 60 percent of the island's holiday homes with about 100,000 living permanently on the island. Others, including super-model Claudia Schiffer, former tennis champion Boris Becker and Formula One star Ralf Schumacher have secondary residences or holiday homes on the island.

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