House transactions will not even reach 50,000 this year
Owning a property in Greece is turning into a nightmare for most taxpayers after the successive measures toward taxing real estate, which means demand for houses is dropping to particularly low levels. Estimates put house transactions to under 50,000 for the whole of 2011.
Bank of Greece data for the second quarter of the year show just 11,400 house transactions, for a total of 23,800 transactions for the first six months of 2011. Even without a greater decline in the rest of the year, it is unlikely that transactions will exceed 50,000 for the 12 months of 2011, while they had amounted to 74,400 in 2010.
In 2008, the last year before the crisis broke out, the house transactions figure had stood at 116,000.
Demand for houses is very small, while supply has grown to disproportionate levels as many households are forced to sell their house in order to pay their new tax obligations.
What is more, the recent approval of the special property levy, to be paid through the electricity bills, provided that it is not extraordinary but permanent, means that property owners will have to pay double taxation for what they possess.
That is so because the Property Tax is not going to be abolished any time soon, placing an additional burden on owners of properties estimated by the tax authorities between 200,000 and 500,000 euros with a 0.2 percent rate, which means a tax between 400 and 1,000 euros per year.
The counterincentives in the market combined with the negative financial environment in general are discouraging the majority of those interested in acquiring a house.
Lefteris Potamianos, the head of the Search
