Greece Lifts Golden Visa Threshold in Bid to Ease Housing Crisis
Even though analysts say that the move won’t have much effect on the market
Residential and commercial properties in the Koukaki district of Athens.
Photographer: Ioana Epure/BloombergOver Christmas, Athina Drakopoulou shut down the arts and crafts shop she had run for 13 years in Koukaki, a gentrified neighborhood near the Acropolis. Her landlords were doubling the rent, and Drakopoulou wasn’t able to compete with the investors going all in on trendy coffee shops and Airbnbs.
The situation would have been unthinkable even a decade ago. Greece’s economy has made a remarkable recovery since 2010, when the Greek debt crisis started. Last year, economic growth outperformed European peers, and the country was granted investment-grade status by rating companies. But the rebound has been accompanied by a housing crisis in the biggest cities and in popular island destinations, where rents rose more than 40% between 2018 and 2022. In Athens, they jumped 23% last year alone.