I just noticed that the Turkish airlines flight from Manchester has a connecting flight down to Dalaman and so no need to book into a hotel. Your idea also sounds nice Sandy, we did something similar 10 years ago when we went in November to buy the house and we booked into the Deadaman Resort (I think it was called) in Antalya. The only problem was that we hated the place and we also did not particularly like Antalya and we found it vey unfriendly which is out of character for Turkey.
It looks like its Turkish airlines for us.