Usage empty buildingspossible, the further regulation of short-term rental platforms And golden visa changes offers, among other things, innovative research to solve the housing problem in our country.

The study, prepared by diaNEOSis Senior Editor Ilias Nikolaidis, captures the acute housing problem in our country through a historical overview of the main causes that caused it, while the specific problem at the European level is highlighted in general and the housing policy in some countries is presented. .

Rapid rise in home prices

The relative cost of housing in Greece has risen sharply in recent years, the study says, noting that, according to Eurostat, Greek non-owner households pay the highest percentage of their income among EU countries, around 37%, for housing. About 1 in 3 households living in cities pay even more, more than 40% of their income for housing, which is also the highest in Europe. At the same time, 3 out of 4 tenants aged 18 to 44 say that the rent they pay causes them stress. According to the study and its sources, empirical records of house searches in Athens, usually written in a desperate tone, paint the same picture.

With regard to price dynamics, it is indicated, among other things, that the increase in the apartment price index for 2021 compared to 2020 was 7.5%, and the increase in the apartment price index for 2022 compared to 2021 was 10%, in while there are 770,000 vacant houses throughout Greece.

How we got the most expensive housing in Europe in terms of income

The DIANEOSIS study estimates that one of the explanations is a significant decrease in income. From 2009 to 2014, Greeks lost over 40% of their disposable income.

At the same time, the number of tourists to cities and islands was growing. Landlords have found new options for managing their properties, such as short-term rentals, which in turn have affected prices and rents. But even before that happened, the study says, Greece was already a country without a great housing policy. In the storm of the crisis, everything that existed was dissolved: in 2012, the OEC, the state body that led the largest housing programs in the country, was abolished without replacement. At this stage of the study, special reference is made to the historical course of the OEC. Among other things, it is reported that in April 2013 OEK was officially taken over by the then OAED (now DYPA).

But in fact, according to the survey, all new activity has stopped. It stopped making new loans, subsidizing mortgage rates, or subsidizing rent. He also stopped planning new settlements and building houses. From then until today, his job has been about what was planned or left “open” until 2012: keeping track of loans already made and completing projects already started.

The review notes that the debate on housing policy has recently resumed. Everyone recognizes the problem and its broader implications, ie. in the demographic profile of the country. The government, according to the study, has taken measures yet to be implemented, while opposition parties have also made proposals.

Possible Solutions

The housing problem is important not only for its primary consequences, but also because it is closely related to inequality and to the demographic problem.

• Restarting housing policy.
• Use of vacant buildings where possible.
• Further regulation of short-term rental platforms.
• Golden Visa Changes.

More precisely, as it turns out, there are solutions, despite the fact that the crisis seems deep enough and will not be easily resolved. The obvious direction is empty buildings. According to the previous census, in 2011 35% of all housing in Greece, 2.2 million housing units, were empty – 600,000 of them in Attica. If vacation homes or second homes are excluded, Attica has 900,000 houses and 314,000.

More recent figures from AADE and released by the government show the same order of magnitude: 770,000 vacant homes (as stated in E2) throughout Greece. A better and more systematic inventory of these hundreds of thousands of homes can provide more information about their prospects for use: what condition are they in? Where exactly are they located? What is the demand for the areas in which they are located?

“Using vacant housing is key to solving housing problems,” said Alexis Patelis, head of the prime minister’s economic department. “But it’s also best practice, given the de facto limits that climate change will place on the total building stock. After all, Greece has the largest number of residential premises per inhabitant among the OECD countries. The containment of prices will also occur due to the activation of supplies.”

Another key point, according to the study, has to do with import demand and platforms such as Airbnb. In 2019, Airbnb registered over 125,000 listings across Greece. While the obligation to declare platform earnings has been in place since 2017, and in some cases there is a limit on the days someone can sell their property on the platform, international experience shows that more can be done.

“Short-term rentals have become a very strong part of the Greek reality,” says Tomas Maloutas. “It has reduced the supply of rental housing, and the supply reduction has helped drive up rents. There is a large field for intervention, as international experience shows. Of course, this also played a positive role – for example, many buildings were modernized in this way.

Appropriate restrictions on golden visas, such as the recent doubling of the limit from €250,000 to €500,000 for some regions, are likely to dampen demand from abroad somewhat and thus have some impact on prices. But here, too, other countries are taking much more drastic measures: Portugal recently abolished the golden visa altogether.

Last September, the review notes, the government announced a particularly ambitious €1.8 billion housing package that is said to benefit 137,000 beneficiaries.

This includes subsidizing mortgage interest rates for young people, subsidy schemes to repair and power upgrade vacant homes and youth, increased housing allowances for students, and even a “welfare” scheme where the government will turn vacant buildings into homes and rent them. at low rent for beneficiaries.

The study found that many, perhaps most, of these programs and measures are outside the current electoral cycle, so the details of their implementation and impact will become known in the future. Other parties have also made proposals to address the housing problem, focusing both on restrictions on platforms and on restarting the institution of social housing.

The study also highlights the fact that the dialogue on housing policy in Greece has resumed. “The experience of the past and the experience of other countries naturally contain valuable lessons. How can a new model of housing policy be created from the ground up that is self-financing and sustainable, so that it does not depend on the distribution of development resources or on the financial space of each year? How will it integrate the new challenges associated with more modern ways of operating real estate? How will this finally eliminate inequality before it “runs away” without stopping the development of the real estate market? These questions will often concern us in the near future,” the diaNEOSIS study says.

What’s going on in Europe?

The European examples presented in the study are also interesting. In particular, according to the sources of a journalistic survey, 1 out of 5 dwellings in Austria is rented social housing. Austria is one of six OECD countries where the proportion of such dwellings increased proportionately between 2010 and 2018. It is worth noting that 80% of Austrian households have the right to access rented social housing.

At the same time, 14% of all housing in France is social rental housing, while there are 5 million social housing in operation in the country, of which 2 million were added in the last 20 years, when 0.45% is the percentage of wages in enterprises of the size and higher financing of social rental housing in France. A journalistic study also found that nearly half of households living on rent, even in social housing, in France are entitled to significant rents.

In Spain, 20,000 energy-efficient social housing units will be refurbished and made available through the Recovery Fund. This is the property of Sareb, a state bank (“bad bank”) that resulted in thousands of properties being auctioned off in the previous decade.

with information from APE-MPE