Country house: Greek interest revives

According to the real estate listings network Spitogatos, the number of searches for homes for out-of-town holidays increased by 20% in the third quarter of this year.

According to research presented by Spitogatos, Greek buyers recorded a significant increase in searches for holiday homes in the third quarter of this year. The growth in inquiries reaches 20%, even surpassing the corresponding growth from foreign interested parties, which was 15%. Accordingly, the average asking price recorded an annual increase of 4.7%, while on average those wishing to purchase a country house have a budget of 300,000-350,000 euros or 4,000-5,000 euros/sq.m., based on the average requested area.

The return of domestic buyers to the country real estate market is a significant eventwhich recorded for the first time since the financial crisis and marks complete restoration of market demandas holiday homes are usually the last category of property to be rehabilitated, noted Mr Yiannis Xilas, head of Geoaxis, a property valuation company.

According to Spitogatos, in the southern suburbs of Attica, 86% of demand for holiday homes comes from Greeks (14% from foreigners), while in the Cyclades, 65% of requests come from Greeks and 35% from foreigners.

According to Mr Georgios Gavrielides, managing director of Elxis, which specializes in the sale of holiday homes to foreigners, “Today there is a huge pool of buyers from North-West Europe, in excess of 3 million people, and this is a very conservative estimate.

Around 300 million people living in Germany, Switzerland, Austria, the Netherlands, Belgium, France and the UK have 250,000–300,000 euros available that they cannot use because they cannot obtain a residence permit in their country for such amount, and taking out a mortgage is now considered unwise because interest rates are prohibitively high.

So they are looking for other markets to invest their money, such as a modern country house that can offer good returns.” As Mr. Gavrielides notes, from this point of view Greece is a great choice as it still offers affordable prices.

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