As Greece’s recovery from the financial calamity of the past decade continues, we look at what is happening to Greek property prices right now. It’s not just in homes that there are more than encouraging signs, in many sectors of the property market the recovery is not just continuing, but gathering pace.
The recovery in Greek property continued and accelerated in the last quarter of 2018. The price of new apartments rose by 2.7% and of older apartments by 2.7%. The quarterly rise in prices hit 1% for the first time in ten years, according to the latest residential property price data from the Bank of Greece.
The price rise was led by Athens, where home values rose by over 4%.
Geographical, the rise was led by Athens, where homes rose by over 4%. Although here the quarterly rise has been pegged back a little, to 0.9% between winter and autumn 2018. This compared to the rise of 1.8% between summer (Q2) and autumn (Q3).
Prices in Thessaloniki rose by 2.1% in the past year and in other cities by 1.1%. For the rest of Greece, the annual rise was a more modest 0.7%. It’s very hard to find accurate and objective data for property in the tourist areas, but anecdotally we are hearing that islands like Mykonos, Corfu and Rhodes are seeing rises more in line with Athens. Read more about where to buy in Greece here.
Overall, property prices remain at around 55 to 60% of where they were in 2009. However, with five consecutive quarters of price rises it seems that the recovery has settled in.
Athens in summer. Could you be there by summer 2019? (ColorMaker / Shutterstock.com)
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The wider economy
Although at the Greece Property Guide we’re primarily interested in the prices of homes, a look at other types of property can help to give an idea of where prices might go next. And the data on office prices is encouraging. In the first half of 2018 offices in Athens were valued at 8.4% higher than in the same period the previous year. And here the rise extended to the whole country, rising by 7.1% in the rest of Greece.
While business confidence in Greece currently has a rating of plus 101, in the UK it is minus 23.
Although the rise in office prices suggests there is faith in the economy, Greece isn’t out of the woods yet. The economy is growing at around 2% per annum, but GDP slipped slightly below zero in the last quarter. Unemployment is still appallingly high. On the plus side, so is business confidence. While business confidence in Greece currently has a rating of plus 101, in the UK it is minus 23.
