Greece’s ‘Generation Rent’
The number of people who have to rent their homes keep rising, as the percentage of those living in their own home is dropping. As sales prices continue their rally, meanwhile, this trend is only expected to intensify further in the coming years.
According to data presented recently by the Geoaxis apartment value observatory, in the three years from 2019 to 2022 alone, the owner-occupation rate in Greece fell from 75.4% before the pandemic to 72.8% in 2022. This figure of 2.6% corresponds to 102,695 homes, which means that those people who proceeded to sell their home did not buy another one, but chose to rent.
Accordingly, those who rent now make up 27.2% of the country’s total population, compared to 24.6% in 2019.
In fact, according to estimates by estate agents, the percentage of renters is significantly higher in Athens and Thessaloniki, possibly even over 35% of the residents. This is because many homeowners work in the country’s two biggest cities, away from where their property is located.
According to Yiannis Xylas, head of the certified surveyors company Geoaxis, what is also being seen as a trend in Greece – as well as in many other countries – is an inability among more and more young people to enter the housing market and turning to renting.
“This is about the so-called ‘Generation Rent,’ that is, the generation of renters. This will dominate the coming decades, not only in Greece, but also other countries with high percentages of home ownership, such as Spain,” notes Xylas.
Based on Eurostat data presented by Geoaxis, in the decade from January 2013 to January 2023, the average annual increase in the basic salary did not exceed 2%. In that same period, the average increase in house prices in the areas monitored by the company’s observatory (Maroussi, Ampelokipi, Peristeri, Paleo Faliro) came to 49%.
From the third quarter of 2022 until Q3 of this year, the sale prices of houses in those areas increased 24.7% for buildings up to five years old and 22.68% for older ones.
