Rate of homeownership posts drop in Greece

High property taxes and the difficulty in getting a mortgage loan resulted in a significant drop in Greek homeownership in 2016, according to Canadian ratings and surveying agency DBRS.

Its European Home Ownership report, released on Wednesday, illustrated that Greece still had a very high rate of home ownership, amounting to 73.9 percent, but slipped in the European chart not only behind leader Spain but Portugal too, due to the country’s 1.6-percentage-point decline from 75.5 percent in 2015. Some 21 percent of Greek households lived in rented accommodation for which they paid full market rates, while another 5 percent paid subsidized rent or had their rent paid for them in its entirety.

At the same time, Spain saw a 0.5 percent decline in its rate of homeownership and Portugal enjoyed a 0.6 percent increase. The rate in Cyprus dropped 0.8 percent to 72.5 percent while that in Italy fell 1 percent to 72.3 percent. The average rate of homeownership in the eurozone in 2016 was 66.5 percent, up 0.15 percent from 2015.

Greece retained its position as the eurozone country with the lowest rate of homeownership through mortgage or other loans, at just 13.9 percent, with Italy on 15.9 percent, Cyprus on 20.4 percent and the eurozone average at 27.9 percent.