There are days now when the estate agent's office in Lavit doesn't even bother to open.

It's also half the size it was when I first crossed its threshold, having met the owners at their impressive stand at a London French Property week.

The formidable matriarch of the family had started the business with her English husband way back in the early 1960s with the specific aim of pitching to an emerging UK market.

But I suspect even they didn't anticipate how deep France was engraved in the hearts of so many middle-class British people. And when Peter Mayle wrote A Year In Provence their rise to good fortune was signed, sealed and delivered.

Even several years ago business was good enough to support them and their daughter, son-in-law and granddaughter, and to bear the costs of that week in London for at least two of the family.

As estate agency fees can run as high as 16%, it doesn't take a mathematician to work out the profit with each house sold.

Glossy sales brochures are rare in France so little, if any, of the profit was diminished by overheads. To be fair, though, the family did provide a full package to the usually linguistically challenged newcomers, organising bank accounts, telephone lines, insurance and even workmen if required.

They always accompanied the buyers to the final signing and keys handover at the notaire's office, translating every page in the interminable legal process.

And afterwards, they would offer a celebratory glass or two of champagne in any nearby bar.

Thanks to this formidable team, spring in La Lomagne always signalled the arrival of a continuous band of pale-skinned, shorts-wearing couples, arms around each other as they peered in the two large windows festooned with dreams for sale.

After a quick chat in the office they would emerge clutching folios of photocopied houses, heading for the bar – now closed – or the restaurant – now closed – to sit in the sun and divide the papers into yay, nay or maybe.

Of course many were property tourists, recognisable by their GB registration plates and often welcomed by name. These were the returning gite dwellers who year after year spent a couple of days visiting house after house that they might, possibly could, would buy - one day.

French sellers, who knew only British people would go misty eyed and wistful when gazing at termite-riddled oak beams, outside lavatories and rapidly decaying barns, went first to Lavit to place their properties.

They could double or triple their money by doing so and contentedly take themselves off to a double-glazed, centrally-heated new bungalow with inside mains loo and, glory of glories, electric shutters.

And, no doubt, on their first winter there they would toast each other in front of their electric fire, thinking of the sweet Anglo OAPs who were now shivering over a cantankerous wood-burner while the septic tank backed up into the bath and the barn fell down with the last termite chomp.

Oh, happy days.

No longer. For the past five years, as the pound and euro have peaked and troughed in a desperate dance of austerity survival, the followers of dreams have all but dried up.

New, more aggressive estate agents have muscled into the region, selling for the British but aiming at the Belgian and Dutch market. Or, if at the top, top end, the Russian and increasingly Chinese market.

It seems there isn't even much of a homegrown market any more. Once all well-heeled French looked for a second home to reinforce the country roots in which they take such pride. The wife and children would be dispatched for the summer and Monsieur could happily play away with his mistress or chums back in the steamy city.

Last week, though, a survey of French property laws warned of an unprecedented crisis in the sale of second homes, intensified by President Hollande's constant changing of capital gains and residential taxes.

And, for once admitting the importance of foreign-owned second homes, a leading estate agent said foreigners once bought 60% of all such houses. Now it is only 30% and falling. Retirees are buying the remaining houses.

House prices throughout France, barring the super-chic areas in the far south, have tumbled and are tumbling further. Even prices in Paris have fallen.

I have friends who are practically giving away a superb house in the Gers. Others I've heard of have simply turned the key and walked away, desperate to return to the UK for other than financial reasons or currency vagaries.

No savvy person bought in France to make money on property but I'm sure all of us thought we'd at least get our initial investment back.

I didn't realise that when I bought Las Molieres a buoyant market was enjoying its final peak, yet I still managed to haggle for less. Since then it's all been downhill.

You know I yearn for a different life to this. I came here for a life I could afford, and now can't afford to leave.

But (said semi-bitterly) for those of you still dreaming of France - now is the time, now is the hour.