Greek Property Market

[Chris D]

Hi all

My wife and I are keen to purchase a smallish second home solely for our own use on one of our favoured Greek islands when we completely retire in a year or two. My immediate problem is that due to the unfavourable conditions of the UK's housing market, I'm having difficulty selling a 2 bedroom flat in London that will provide the source of money for our purchase in Greece.

I would appreciate comments from people already on the housing ladder in Greece as to the state of the Greek housing market, are prices currently stable, falling or increasing?

Any market predictions for the future?

Thanks in anticipation.

[nickolas]

Prices in general are stable now, after years of increasing.
I believe things cannot go much worse than the current status.
Due to the Greek attitude, some properties are listed for sale for several months, in some cases years, without the owner offering a lower price.
Right now, prices on average are stable but inflation at 5% does the job of effectively reducing their value.

There are exceptions though, with prices still increasing, like Crete.
...there is always demand for Crete!

[Toto]

I agree with Nickolas on this. Property prices in Greece rarely fall.

One thing that may be different this time round, however, is that UK-style mortgages are a relatively new phenomenon in Greece and there's enough evidence to suggest that Greek people have overstreched themselves to buy their first property. My personal opinion (and I'm sure others may disagree) is that we may see some falls in Athens and other major cities as the credit crunch bites and the economy slows. In other regions, however, I'm expecting prices to stay put for a while and then rise again. As Nickolas says sellers in rural areas would rather wait to get the full asking price rather than drop the price.

I also would like to add that that one of the knock-on effects of the slowing economy is that a large number of people will no longer be able to afford a place in a large city and may decide to move to a rural area where the cost of living is lower. There's a trend, especially among young couples, to leave the big cities. This may therefore prevent prices on islands and other rural areas from dropping as demand for housing there is likely to increase.

[juliecraw]

I am in the process of purchasing a small villa in Santorini with plans to rent in the short term and retire in the mid term. I started the process in June of last year and signed the contract in Septemebr (the villa is under construction). Since that time the cost has increased by about 8%. By the way there is still one villa available if anyone's interested