Closed apartments in Athens: 117,000 empty houses in the center and 22,000 in Piraeus

More than one in four apartments in the center Athens Today it is closed. A high proportion of empty housing is also recorded in other areas Atticaespecially in Piraeusas well as in the southern and western suburbs, where most of the housing stock is concentrated. This is one of the key findings of the study ReDataset groups Resolute Cepal Greecebased on building census data ΕΛΣΤΑΤ.

According to the analysis, there is a clear difference between the center Athens And Piraeuson the one hand, and later developed areas Attica – on the other. There are significantly fewer empty houses in the northern and southern suburbs, both in absolute numbers and as a share of the total housing stock. However, the main problem lies precisely in municipality of Athenswhere it is counted 117,137 empty residential unitsthat is 26.8% of the total.

We are talking about objects owned by private owners, as well as various structures public sector – both narrow and wide (for example, EFKAmunicipality, funds, etc.). Some of the housing is in the portfolios of banks and distressed debt management companies (servicers).

A high concentration of empty apartments is also recorded in municipality of PiraeusWhere 22.1% housing, or 21,712 apartmentsare closed. A similar picture is observed in Peristeri – there are 13 212 empty objects. In the area Zografwhere demand for rentals is traditionally high due to University campusalmost revealed 10,000 closed apartments, which corresponds 21.6% housing stock.

“Renew-Rent” program(Ανακαινίζω – Νοικιάζω) for 50 million euros – a drop in the ocean. Around 250,000 homes have been declared uninhabitable.

At the opposite pole are the northern suburbs. The worst performance here is demonstrated by Kifissiawhere they are empty 18.4% housing, or 6 441 apartment. In other popular areas such as Vrilisia And Agia Paraskevithe proportion of empty objects does not exceed, respectively 9% And 10.2%which corresponds to everything 1,267 And 2,977 apartments.

Thus, it becomes obvious that in areas with low and middle income the vacancy rate is significantly higher than in higher income areas. This enhances social stratification and deepens when those in need of affordable housing face shortages despite hundreds of thousands of “ghost apartments”.

Moreover, even the incentive measures taken government to return part of this fund to the market, there is no guarantee that this will actually happen. The reason is high cost of major repairsnecessary in many objects.

According to the study National Bank of Greeceduring the economic crisis, there was no investment on the market in the repair and maintenance of housing in the amount of about 35 billion euros. As a result, approximately 250,000 apartments today are in such a state that in fact unsuitable for habitation and, accordingly, excluded from the market.

For this reason, measures such as the recently approved income tax benefit from rental income during the first three years of renting out an apartment that had previously been empty for three years, it is unlikely that they will be able to put such properties back into circulation on a large scale. For many owners, the amount of investment required is simply not comparable to the benefits.

The program is being implemented in parallel “Renewing-renting” (Ανακαινίζω – Νοικιάζω)which is formally in high demand, but has a budget of only 50 million euros. In practice, this is clearly insufficient, given that in some cases the amount required to make housing suitable (and therefore rentable) again after many years of disuse is many times the amount of the subsidy.

Let us remind you that within the framework of the program “Renew-rent» subsidized work on bathroom and kitchen renovationrepair electrical and plumbing installations, load-bearing structuresas well as styling tiles, painting and replacement doors. However, without large-scale attraction of private capital and targeted policies for working with empty and deteriorating fund these measures remain only a limited attempt to plug the huge “hole” in the housing market of Athens and the whole Attica.

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