The Greek government claims that tenant relief is a priority and that housing is inherent to a rapidly growing economy. But is it so? DW report. For the Greeks, especially the Athenians, the time when anyone could relatively easily find a house – either to rent or to buy – is now a distant memory.

In addition to thousands of people searching in vain for affordable housing, even those who live in houses paying rent find it difficult to cope with their financial obligations. According to a Eurostat survey from autumn 2024, excluding people living on the poverty line or in social exclusion, 17.7% of tenants in Greece were unable to pay their rent in the last year – this is the highest percentage of all EU member states.

The government claims that “tenant relief” is a “highest priority”. However, the spasmodic half-measures and the general priorities of the government in economic policy suggest that things are rather different.

The elusive dream of finding a home

According to the data available from the National Statistical Service of Greece (NSS), from 2018 to 2023, rental prices increased by up to 52.1% – and this despite the fact that the pandemic somewhat interrupted the upward trend. In the last two years, rental prices have continued to gallop – from May 2024 to May 2025 alone, rental prices increased by a further 10.9%, according to ELSTAT.

In the Joint Employment Report 2025, published last March by the European Commission, it is underlined that in Greece the percentage of households over-indebted from the cost of housing increased in 2023 to 28.5% (with the European average at 8.8%), a condition that constitutes one of the “important challenges facing Greece in terms of social protection and social inclusion, with most indicators pointing to a “critical situation”.

Eurostat data also shows that in Greece, citizens pay an average of 35.2% of their income to pay their rent – ​​a record percentage in the entire EU, with the European average at 19.7%.

As for the housing market, things are even worse: research by the company Cerved Property Services in collaboration with the University of Athens and the University of Macedonia observes that, in order for an average wage earner to be able to buy a property of 60 sq.m. in Athens as soon as possible, he should save his entire income for 12 consecutive years. But even then, it probably wouldn’t succeed – because from 2018 to 2023 the average salary increased by 17%, but on the other hand, between 2017 and 2024, residential property prices shot up by 71%, as pointed out in Alpha Bank’s Annual Financial Report 2024.

A housing crisis is observed in various states across Europe. The case of Greece, however, is special. In an interview with DW, Kosmas Marinakis, senior lecturer in Economics at the Singapore University of Business Administration and creator of the popular Greekonomics channel, explains that, in contrast to other countries, in Greece “incomes are “stuck” and do not follow a corresponding upward trend” with rents – a fact that combined with inflation and the general increase in prices and the cost of living, makes the problem much worse.

Real estate as a high demand investment product

A second reason for the size of the housing crisis in Greece is the policy followed with the Golden Visas. A policy which, according to the expert, “is wrong – and we have already begun to see results that substantiate this very convincingly”.

In the context of this policy, in two words, the following happened: “In order for cash to enter the country, we Greeks actually sold assets, something which, in the immediate but also in the distant future, will put us in a more difficult position.” In the long term this policy will lead to a much greater disproportion of the assets that Greeks have in their hands and the real estate that foreigners will now have. In other words, in the short term the Golden Visa policy brings cash to the country and improves economic indicators, but in the long term “the situation is getting worse, not better”.

Additionally, as observed in a recent report by the Athens University of Economics and Business on the Golden Visas launched in 2019, many developers are now turning to luxury real estate projects (with the aim of buying these with foreign capital), the availability of affordable rentals for locals remains limited and as a result the demand for the relatively few, affordable units on the market is increasing more and more. As a result, rents and purchase prices “climb” higher and higher.

“Glopping growth” and rising rents

Putting aside the assurances of the prime minister that the relief of the tenants is for him “the highest priority”, let’s focus on another phrase of Kyriakos Mitsotakis from the TIF last September. The prime minister said, among other things, that the housing crisis is a problem that is inextricably linked to “an economy that is developing rapidly”.

Economist Marinakis characterizes the correlation of the severe housing crisis with the supposed galloping economic growth as “100% fiction”. In the case of Greece, “there is not so much growth as to justify the magnitude of the problem of the housing crisis. We saw a growth of 5.9%, which is also due to the recovery after the pandemic” and from there “the economy is growing at an anemic 2.3-2.6% – which is not considered a large growth rate, capable of causing such problems in housing”.

Does the government really want low rents?

To curb uncontrolled rents the government is largely limited to half-measures, which do not really address the problem – neither in the short term nor in the long term.

According to Kosmas Marinakis, the “Renovate-Rent” program is “a good measure, because it will put properties on the market that are currently out of supply”. On the other hand, however, the measure of returning a rent every November “doesn’t help to improve the situation, because it just automatically raises the prices. When the owners see that there is more liquidity in the market, they will also raise the prices, because they find that they have the room to do it, that people have to find a house to stay anyway.”

Addressing the housing crisis ultimately requires drastic measures, which are not enough to be limited to the real estate sector. “The problem of the housing crisis in Greece is not mainly… housing. The problem lies mainly in the fact that the economy and incomes have generally lagged behind, and because of this there are not the same possibilities of access to housing, as those that existed a few years ago”, emphasizes Marinakis.

He observes that “incomes in Greece seem to be stabilizing”, as well as that “neither the government nor the opposition seems to have any plan” that can significantly improve the situation. Therefore, while it is possible that prices will decompress in the coming years, “in the long term the upward trend is likely to continue” – and the economist warns that in the distant future housing may become “a luxury item”.

In the recent TIF, the prime minister characteristically mentioned that we must “look at both sides” when considering housing. The vast majority of citizens, however, (re)cognise both sides: both how dire is the position in which the tenants find themselves, but also how much the owners benefit.