Last year the country’s real estate market attracted €2.75 billion, a historically high figure, easily beating the 2023 record of €2.13 billion. In both years, the main reason for this development was the changes introduced to the ‘Golden Visa’ program.
Investments in the real estate market fell to just 17% of all foreign investments in the first nine months of this year. This is mainly due to the large increase observed this year in terms of overall foreign direct investment in the Greek economy, as well as to the decline recorded by realty investments.
Bank of Greece data for the first nine months of the year showed that foreign capital inflows for the property market fell by 24%, to €1.46 billion euros, from €1.925 billion last year. For the July-September period, the decline reached 32.7%, as €527 million flowed in, compared to €783.7 million in 2024.
In January-September the overall foreign investments that flowed into the Greek economy amounted to €8.6 billion, which means that the share of real estate was 17%, down from 34% in the first half.
Until the end of June, FDI in the economy had not exceeded €2.8 billion, of which €938.3 million concerned real estate. In this context, among others, transactions such as the sale of 60% of Hellenic Healthcare Group by Pure Health Holding, based in Abu Dhabi, for €800 million, stood out.
In 2024, the share of real estate in total foreign investments was 46%, while the percentage was similar in 2023 (47%). Last year the Greek property market attracted €2.75 billion, a historically high figure, beating the 2023 record of €2.13 billion.
In both years, the main reason for this development was the changes to the “Golden Visa” program. Based on data from the Ministry of Immigration and Asylum, in 2024 a total of 9,411 applications were submitted by the initial investor for the issuance of a residence permit, representing an increase of 11% compared to 2023 (8,477 applications), when a historical high had been recorded with an annual increase of 94.8% compared to the applications of 2022, at 4,354.
As expected, this trend began to reverse this year, especially from April onwards, when the last deadline given to foreign investors to secure permits based on the previous regime passed.