12,500 Closed Apartments in Greece to Hit the Market Under New 'Renovate-Rent' Initiative

Jun 17, 2024 Latest News

The 4th Premium Real Estate Expo, the leading event for the real estate sector, was successfully completed on Sunday, May 19 with unique guests, more than 80 exhibitors and attendance that exceeded 5000 professional visitors from Greece and abroad, with international visitors reaching 30% of the total traffic.

At the same time, the Premium Real Estate Forum, which took place in the framework of the Exhibition on Saturday, May 18, was also concluded, with a large participation of professionals from the sector who provided answers to current issues of the real estate sector and presented market trends.

The thousands of apartments that will be put on the market with the new "Renovate - Rent" programme of the newly established Ministry of Social Cohesion and Family, were mentioned by the Secretary General of Demographic and Housing Policy of the newly established Ministry of Social Cohesion and Family, Mrs Marina Stefou. Opening the Real Estate Forum's "Affordable Living" panel, Ms. Stefou and Ms. Zissopoulou, representatives of the Ministry, focused on the new programs "Renovate - Rent" and "Social Counterpart". Both are aimed at increasing the housing stock with the former program having received 1,700 applications in just 3 weeks, while the latter is in the process of developing a framework, inventorying Ministry property and meeting with market participants. In fact, the possibility of people buying out the apartment they will initially rent is being considered. According to Ms Stefu, an intervention is being prepared for the housing of public servants on plots of land owned by municipalities, mainly in the Greek islands, and the problem of housing seasonal workers in the same areas is being studied. Representing the private sector, Mr. Elias Manoukas, Investment Director of Bollmann Group Hellas, pointed out that in Europe the cooperation between the private and public sector on housing policy issues started years ago. He also mentioned that in Athens one solution is the conversion of offices into residential buildings and that suitable areas for the construction of economic buildings include areas such as Tavros, Kerameikos, Agios Ioannis Renti, Botanikos, Eleonas and Ilion, among others. For his part, Mr. Emmanuel Psallidas, Real Estate Development Manager of ELEMKA SA, a subsidiary of METKA, stressed the need for government intervention to reduce VAT on construction costs.

The presentation of the 2nd Real Estate Market Barometer by Mr. Ilias Papageoriadis, Entrepreneur and Business Consultant, pointed out that while there is a significant difference between owners, buyers and professionals in their assessments of where property prices are going, they all agree that interest rates are high, that there is difficulty in accessing credit and that there is less disposable income. At the same time through the survey it became apparent that young people between the ages of 17 and 34 appear more pessimistic about the direction of rental and house prices in the coming year, expecting a big rise. Papageorgiadis also said that the "My House" programme has had a negative impact on property prices and that he believes that its abolition combined with the introduction of new Golden Visa restrictions will result in 2025 being the most interesting year in the property market in the last decade.

Regarding Golden Visa, Mr.Vangelis Kteniadis, Founder and President of V2 Development and Golden Sponsor of the Forum, stressed that Golden Visa does not affect the lack of properties and suggested that only newly built properties should be allowed to be purchased for Golden Visa, while Mr. Kostas Arslanoglou, CEO of Investgreece, pointed out that there is a need for a greater check on the criminal record of interested buyers for Golden Visas. For his part, the CEO of the Israel-Greece Chamber of Commerce, Mr. Cobi Bitton, stressed that obtaining a residence permit through a Golden Visa for investment in the country is not a priority for Israeli investors. For them, Greece is an ideal investment destination due to its geographical proximity, friendly atmosphere and flexibility, as well as cost-effectiveness.

The importance of constructing more passive buildings and converting existing buildings into passive ones, ensuring the minimization of energy consumption for heating and cooling was mentioned in his speech by Mr. Stefanos Pallantzas, Civil Engineer of NTUA and President of the Hellenic Institute of Passive Building, stressed the need for the utilization of public buildings that are for rent, while the need for the utilization of new technologies and artificial intelligence was mentioned by Mr. Vassilis Iliopoulos, Founder and CEO - BluPeak Estate Analytics, and Mr. Agis Veroutis, CEO grammateia.gr - AI in Business, respectively.

The Real Estate Forum was also attended by the international delegation of the FIABCI (International Real Estate Federation). The World President, Mr. Budiarsa Sastrawinata from Indonesia opened the session by explaining the role of FIABCI at the international level. In the panel that followed, directors of the organization from UAE, Indonesia and Italy presented what is current in the real estate market in their countries and what are the future trends, while Mr. Rafat Chabaane, Chairman of FIABCI's Global PropTech Council explained to the industry professionals the applications of Proptech that add value to the real estate and construction market and spoke about the challenge of sustainability.

The opening of the exhibition on Friday 17 May was attended and addressed by the Deputy Minister of Finance, Harris Theocharis, the Secretary General for International Economic Relations and External Relations of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Myra Mrogianni, the Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of Greece, Mrs. Secretary of Tourism at PASOK-KINAL, Sofia Katsigiannis, the Vice President of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Dimitris Demetriou, the Special Advisor to the Regional Governor of the North Aegean, Stratis Zafiris, the CPO of Plasis Real Estate & Development and Gold Sponsor of the 4th Premium Real

Estate Expo, Nikos Tsatsis and the President of the Athens - Attica Association of Real Estate Agents, Lefteris Potamianos.

See the List of exhibitors here

See the programme of the 4th Real Estate Forum here

See the programme of the Project Presentation here

The 4th Premium Real Estate Expo is under the auspices of the Association of Real Estate Agents of Attica - Athens and FIABCI, The International Real Estate Federation.