Househunters look to Greece
Major expansion in foreign interest in the local residential market from many countries
Interest from abroad in buying houses in Greece has reverted to an upward course. As property market professionals had anticipated, the pool of potential buyers has been significantly expanded by people wishing to relocate to and work from Greece – digital nomads – as well as pensioners from Northern Europe.
The introduction of tax incentives and a special visa for digital nomads appears to have borne fruit: In a survey by the online property ads platform Spitogatos.gr, the country where the biggest growth in demand for properties in Greece originates is Spain – up an impressive 323%. Of course this doesn’t really concern Spaniards wishing to buy a house in Greece, but rather foreigners living in Spain who are now considering selling their home on the Iberian peninsula and relocating to Greece.
In the last few decades Spain has been attracting foreign property buyers, mainly retirees from Northern Europe (such as the United Kingdom and Scandinavia), as well as remote workers. Now the new residential demand data for Greece is showing that some of those people appear willing to shift their residence to Greece, where the cost of living is lower, especially when compared with cities such as Madrid or Barcelona.
The data that Spitogatos released on Thursday also showed a significant increase in demand from countries with a strong element of overseas Greeks. House searches from Germany have grown 70% compared to last summer, while searches from the US showed 20% growth. Canadian users increased their searches for a home in Greece by 63%, followed by searches from France (up 39%), the Netherlands (33%) and Switzerland (33%).
The top five countries in searches for a residential property in Greece are Germany, the UK, the US, Cyprus and France.
Commenting on the findings, Spitogatos chief executive Dimitris Melachroinos said, “This year we have observed major growth in visits to our network, not only compared to 2020 but also to previous years.” China is notably absent from the countries searches originate from.
