Hot Properties in Greece
GREECE is one of the oldest civilizations in Europe which have been in existence even before the birth of Christ. Thus, Greece has always been a tourist magnet. And a tourism boom is definitely synonymous to a boost in the real estate industry in any given country. Greece is not an exception of that. Greece has definitely not been affected with the mortgage crunch in the United States.
As we all know, Greece is an archipelago splashed in the Aegean Sea and the Ionian Sea. Aside from the main island of Greece, the smaller islands are Crete and the rest. There are definitely lots of properties here. These include the Saronic islands, Spetses, Rhodes, Corfu and Mykonos. Of all them, the capital of Athens has the most static cling for property buyers at 80 percent. Contrary to what is happening in the United States, the mortgage status in Greece remains to be bullish.
One of the major components why Greece is such a hot commodity as far as real estate is concerned is because of its soaring investment in properties. It is not just the natives of Greece who are erecting infrastructures for sale. Even multinational companies have already joined the fray. They are buying lands and developing high-end subdivisions every now and then. Each subdivision is then bombarded with various commercial and industrial investments. The result is a very robust economy for all of Greece. For the first quarter of this year alone, real estate investments have risen to seven percent as compared to the same period last year. This accounts for a 12 percent increase of apartment constructions in the same comparative period. In just a span of four years from 1999 to 2002, house constructions have soared to a whooping 164 percent. This is particularly true in Athens, the capital of Greece, for practical purposes. If you want to take a look at the macro data, then dig this. Property prices have steadily increased by 20 percent from 2003 even to the present.
Industry analysts have forecast that Northern Europeans will buy a total of one million homes all the way to the next decade. It is not a surprise that Northern and Western Europeans love Greece. There is easy access to Greece for foreigners after all. All the visitor needs to do is land at Athens International Airport if he or she has the proper documents. There are also daily train rides available from Sofia, Budapest and Istanbul. If you are into ferries, then you may hop from Venice, Trieste, Turkey, Alexandria, Cyprus and Haifa.
Purchasing property in Greece is not just for purposes of living in the property. Some people have made it into a business by leasing the properties to other vacationers. This also sounds good since tourists have steadily inhabited Greece for the past decades or so. In fact, tourists have increased by seven percent from 2005 to 2006. Tourism revenue is likewise expected to up from 37 billion euros in 2006 to 70 billion euros by 2016.