Greece’s ‘Generation Rent’

The number of people who have to rent their homes keep rising, as the percentage of those living in their own home is dropping. As sales prices continue their rally, meanwhile, this trend is only expected to intensify further in the coming years.

According to data presented recently by the Geoaxis apartment value observatory, in the three years from 2019 to 2022 alone, the owner-occupation rate in Greece fell from 75.4% before the pandemic to 72.8% in 2022. This figure of 2.6% corresponds to 102,695 homes, which means that those people who proceeded to sell their home did not buy another one, but chose to rent.

Accordingly, those who rent now make up 27.2% of the country's total population, compared to 24.6% in 2019.

In fact, according to estimates by estate agents, the percentage of renters is significantly higher in Athens and Thessaloniki, possibly even over...