Forget metrics such as rising property prices, increased house sales, an improving consumer price index, the ultimate indicator the recession is officially over has to be the news that the Overseas Property Show is making a return to Dublin.

It may be a little bit eleventh hour, as the organisers say they’ve just “added” Dublin to the UK tour, but it’s all happening next Sunday, November 22nd and Monday, November 23rd at Dublin’s RDS.

The event will be free – after all, expecting people to pay to peruse overseas properties for an afternoon might just be pushing the boundaries of our recovery narrative. Maybe next year.

Properties from Portugal, Spain, Italy, Florida and Cyprus will feature, along with sage advice on the pitfalls of buying abroad, the associated legal issues and how different countries compare with each other in terms of pros and cons.

For sure a number of these economies are a little behind Ireland in terms of their recovery and it’s likely there is property investment value to be had in some markets. But just how many punters will have the appetite (or the budget) to go along will be interesting to see. It doesn’t seem all that long since we were being urged to buy up villas in Cape Verdi, Bulgaria or Romania before it was too late, or did we just dream all that up?