Property owners doubling rent revenues thanks to homesharing

Several property owners in Greece have seen their monthly incomes from rent shoot up by as much as 105 percent in the last couple of years, thanks to the growing popularity of homesharing.

According to a survey by AirDNA, a company that analyzes data from the ads on the Airbnb homesharing platform, in the period from the summer of 2016 to June 2018, Antiparos island in the Cyclades stood out as the Greek destination with the biggest increase in monthly revenues for owners: they more than doubled their takings from 2016 to 2018, reaching a monthly rate of 860 euros on average.

Rent revenues also grew 84 percent in Messini in the Peloponnese to 460 euros/month, and 71 percent on the island of Kythera, just south of the Peloponnese, to 530 euros/month.

The highest monthly revenues in absolute figures were found on Santorini last summer, amounting to an average of almost 4,000 euros after a 32 percent rise from 2016, with property ads numbering 2,240. The island with the greatest number of ads is Crete, with 12,260 properties on offer and with a 25 percent rise in takings from 2016 to 2018 when they came to 950 euros/month.

Another trend that stands out from the analysis is the entry of several new areas in the map of properties available, thanks to the easy and immediate promotion that online platforms such as Airbnb, HomeAway and Booking offer. Alternative destinations such as Edipsos on Evia, Trifyllia in the Peloponnese, and the coast of Katerini in central Macedonia, have managed to raise their profile and attract more visitors from abroad courtesy of platforms such as Airbnb.

Owners in most of those areas have therefore found an additional distribution channel for their properties so as to attract foreign visitors and increase their revenues. In no case has there been a lack of rooms in those locations, or an oversupply of ads, as in most cases (excluding the most popular destinations) the number advertised properties does not exceed 150-200 per location.

Notably, the occupation rate remains low at these alternative destinations compared with more popular ones, as in seven out of the 10 destinations included in the survey occupancy does not exceed 20-30 percent on a monthly basis.