Gap reopens in property rates

The effort to have taxable property rates (known as “objective values”) converge with the actual market prices currently looks like a losing battle.

Just a year after the latest adjustment of objective values – indeed with brave increases in several areas – commercial prices have already recorded significant new appreciations. Looking at the picture in Attica and the Cyclades, where there were significant zone price adjustments last year, an average deviation of 51% is still observed.

The price rally in many areas of Attica during 2022 led to a fresh divergence with objective values. This is obvious when comparing the average price per square meter from the contracts declared in 2022 in the General Secretariat of Information Systems’ Register of Real Estate Transfer Values, in relation to sales transactions carried out in the same areas during the past year (which were processed by the Topo GES IKE Residential Market Observatory). As a rule, the prices listed in the sales contracts are the objective ones.

The highlight is certainly the island of Mykonos, which also stars in this case (among other things in current affairs), registering a deviation of 227.5%. It is characteristic that the average price declared in the contracts registered in the register is 1,985 euros/sq.m., while the average sale rate was €6,500/sq.m. Deviations of the order of 52% and 45% are also registered on Paros and Santorini; however, these are in line with the average of the rest of the regions.

Large differences are also found in areas of the capital’s northern and southern suburbs. For example, in Kifissia there is a discrepancy of 65%, as the average sales price last year was €3,200/sq.m., compared to €1,940/sq.m. which was the corresponding price stated in the housing sales contracts registered in the GIS Securities Register. In Halandri the discrepancy reached 54%, in Glyfada 47% and in Nea Smyrni 62.2%.

As for the city center, the discrepancy currently reaches up to 95%.