There are many true sayings, but probably the truest in the current economic climate is that one man’s loss is another man’s gain.

Since the start of the credit crunch many households have had their incomes seriously decreased by such things as a cut in working hours, the doing away with paid overtime, and in extreme circumstances by redundancy.

The credit crunch started well over two years now and it not only those who work for someone else who have started to struggle financially, but also those who ran their own business have been affected.

Some of these individuals owned second homes abroad in such areas as Spain, Italy and France. Tragically through no fault of their own, they can no longer afford these properties and have been forced to put them on the market for sale at low prices. The even more unfortunate have had their homes repossessed by the mortgage lender, and when this is the case the price of the property for sale will be even less.

Many people dream of owning a second home in the sun, but usually it stays in their heads as an unobtainable dream that they cannot afford. It may surprise many of them to realize that there are so many great foreign property buys and it is worth moving on this now.

You can fund the purchase by organizing a foreign mortgage, and there are companies which specialise in them, but going down this route would mean that you would need a 30% deposit.

If you own your own home in the UK. you can organise a secured loan or a remortgage on your residence to raise funds to buy your second home. Secured loans and remortgages are both forms of homeowner loans secured on the equity of your property.

Before the credit crunch secured loans were available up to 250,000, but now the maximum available secured loan, depending on equity, income, etc. is 100,000. However you can buy a nice little flat in Benidorm and many other resorts in Spain for that.

If a secured loan does not release enough funds so that you can buy the property you want, you can go down the remortgage route which allows you the equity of 90% LTV.

There cannot be any nicer way of using the equity on your own property than to arrange a secured loan or remortgage to buy your dream second home.