residential Market News: Spanish Real Estate Intelligence

In 2019 the Thessaloniki real estate market started to rise. In the center of the city there is already a shortage of available properties and large increases in rental prices. There is strong interest in land plots in the eastern suburbs, heralding a further increase in building activity in 2020.

Especially in the city center and in the neighboring areas over the last two years there has been a significant increase in rental prices, which in the center exceeds 40%. This is attributed not only to the exploitation of old apartments through short-term rental platforms, but also to NGOs, which have rented apartments to host refugees. Increase in prices and lack of real estate is also recorded in areas between the center and the eastern suburbs.

Forecasts for 2020 speak of continuing the upward trend, with the main characteristic being the shift in buyers' interest in newly built homes.

According to the BoG's data for the first nine months of 2019, there was a remarkable growth rate of apartment prices which reached 7.6% in the wider Thessaloniki region. This recovery was primarily a result of the investment interest in buying older apartments, and turning them into short-term lease rentals.

Original Source: Naftemporiki

Adaptation/Translation: Kiki Athanasiadis

According to the BoG's data, it is estimated that in the second quarter of 2019 apartment prices increased by 7.7%, compared to the corresponding quarter of 2018. In the first quarter of 2019 the corresponding increase was 4.9%.

The analysis of the data by geographical region shows that the increase in apartment prices in the second quarter of 2019 compared to the corresponding quarter of 2018 was 11.1% in Athens, 7.0% in Thessaloniki, 4.1% in other major cities and 4.9% in the rest of the country.

Based on the revised figures, it is estimated that in the first quarter of 2019 apartment prices increased by 7.1% in Athens, 5.4% in Thessaloniki, 2.5% in other major cities and 3.2% in other regions of the country compared to the first quarter of 2018. For the whole of 2018, the increase in prices in the same regions compared to 2017 was 2.7%, 1.0%, 0.8%, and 1.1 % respectively.

Finally, for all urban areas of the country, apartment prices were up 8.0% in the second quarter of 2019 compared to the second quarter of 2018. Based on revised figures, on the first quarter of 2019 the corresponding increase in apartment prices in urban areas was 5.2%, while for the whole of 2018 the average annual increase stood at 1.7%.