Many and interesting were the conclusions obtained from the first major survey “The Real Estate Market Barometer. What the Greeks expect” which was presented on Wednesday, November 22, at the OTE Academy, in the context of the event “Greece 2024. Business, Real Estate, Investments”. The survey was prepared by Opinion Poll and its findings were presented on stage by the representative of the research company, Mr. Zacharias Zoupis.
This new event concept took place in a packed hall and was divided into three parts. The first was a masterclass by the organizer on “how to understand your customer to be able to win them”, where he explained with simple and practical examples how important it is for small and medium enterprises in Greece to deepen their understanding of their customers. The second part had the presentation of the research, its analysis and Ilias Papageorgiadis’ predictions for the real estate market, its distortions, AirBnB, off-plan properties, the golden visa and the vacation home. The third part presented the degree of risk in the remaining investment categories, photovoltaics in Greece and Romania, investment in sailing boats in Greece and other investment options.
“The Barometer of the Real Estate Market” by Opinion Poll and the blog iliaspapageorgiadis.com is the first attempt in Greece to detect market trends for the next period and citizens’ expectations. Among the results that stood out are the following:
- 69.1% of the respondents consider the rise in prices in recent years “absurd”, “incomprehensible” and “a bubble”, but at the same time 71.7% expect prices to rise more or less in the next six months and the 18.1% expect them to remain stable! At the same time, 56.7% find the long-term real estate trends positive and only 48.7% believe that high lending rates affect the market.
- Of great interest is the fact that at the present stage the most “defensive” towards the market seem to be… property sellers, with 47% of them expecting a small rise and around 25% expecting stability in prices. At the same time, 73.4% of buyers expect a small (40.5%) or large (32.9%) increase in prices.
- 60% of citizens expect that the prices of old properties will continue to rise more or less (72.2% expect this for the properties that were financed by the “My Home” program). At this point, Ilias Papageorgiadis explained his first disagreement with the sense of public opinion: “The properties related to this program recorded a very large increase in prices, for no other reason than the advantage of interest-free lending. With the program not continuing for 2024, it is logical that their prices will decrease compared to 01.10.2023, from 10% to over 20%, depending on the region”.
- 61.7% of citizens expect rents to continue to rise (54% property sellers), while 40.9% request a reduction in ENFIA and taxes to open the 750,000 closed houses (42.4% owners) . 33.7% favor the subsidy for renovation and energy upgrading (27.1% owners), 15.6% request measures to better protect the owner (22.4% owners) and 5.3% faster Dispute Resolution.
- 28.4% of citizens expect that the new measures for short-term rentals such as AirBnB will lead many owners to withdraw their properties from the market, while 47.7% expect that few owners will do so. At this point, Ilias Papageorgiadis expressed his second disagreement with the citizens’ expectations: “Few or none will withdraw their properties, since short-term rentals are still more beneficial to the owners than long-term rentals, for many different reasons.” .
The image in Ioannina
We have experienced this “absurd” increase in real estate prices in recent years in Ioannina as well, where even the rent of a house sometimes exceeds the monthly salary of a low-paid private employee. Newly built buildings cost around 3,000 euros per square meter, while renting a student apartment of 35 sq.m. 400-500 euros will be required, depending on the area. Accordingly, an apartment for a family can reach 700 euros. Of course, the prices are lower in older houses, but most of which have been renovated, while many are no longer available for long-term rental but through short-term rental platforms, as they are more profitable.
