The Government (Fomento) has revealed there were 65,855 property valuations in Q1, 52pc down on Q4 last year, and 46pc down on Q1 last year.

As you can in the image above, appraisals were down by 97pc in Malaga, 67pc in Marbella, and 93pc in Mijas, at least according to the data provided by one company.

Property valuations or appraisals (known as tasaciones in Spanish) are a key part of many property sales as you need one to get a mortgage. A big decline in appraisals portends a similar decline in house sales in Q1, though we won’t know for sure until the house sales figures are published on 8 June.

We do know that the fall was largely due to a plunge in the number of valuations of properties less than 2 years old. That would make sense as the number of new homes built in the last 2 years starts to fall off a cliff.

Even so, the last thing Spain needs right now is a decline in house sales.

You can see just how much the number of valuations (organised by municipality) carried out by one company (Atasa) has declined at this page of idealista.com, a leading property portal.