Roughly 12% of Greece’s houses, amounting to approximately 800,000 properties nationwide, currently sit empty. Authorities hope that with the right incentives, a significant portion of these closed homes could be mobilized to combat the country’s ongoing housing crisis.
Crucially, these properties are not secondary holiday homes, meaning they represent a viable permanent residential supply, according to Mando Zisopoulou, Housing Policy Director at the Ministry of Social Cohesion and Family. Speaking at the Real Estate Forum in Athens, Zisopoulou revealed that these statistics stem from an upcoming comprehensive study on national housing policy, set to be published in the coming days.
Empty houses in Greece: Location and age
However, the data highlights two major hurdles in activating this “hidden treasure”: geographic distribution and structural age.
Location Mismatch: The majority of vacant homes are not located in high-demand urban centers, facing the worst of the housing crunch. Instead, high concentrations of empty properties are found in regions like the Southeastern Aegean and the Ionian islands.
Aging Infrastructure: The vast majority of these homes require serious structural updates:
- 22% were built before 1960.
- 33% were built between 1960 and 1980.
- 80% are at least 25 years old (constructed before 2000).
“This entails the necessity for considerable funds toward renovating this stock before it can be utilized,” Zisopoulou noted.
A €500 million renovation strategy
Faced with these challenges, the Greek government is prioritizing the restoration of existing closed homes over building new ones from scratch.
To fund this initiative, the ministry is planning to allocate €500 million from the National Strategic Reference Framework (NSRF) specifically for mild renovations of older, vacant properties. “This is a hidden treasure, since empty houses are numerous and far easier to reactivate compared to constructing new buildings,” Zisopoulou emphasized.
Beyond physical renovations, many of these properties are locked away due to legal gridlock. Lena Kontogeorgou, head of the Notaries Association of Athens, Piraeus, the Aegean, and the Dodecanese, pointed out that town planning discrepancies and complex inheritance disputes frequently stall property utilization.
Relief may be on the horizon, however, as Kontogeorgou noted that an upcoming inheritance bill, set for a parliamentary vote soon, is expected to resolve many of these deeply rooted legal bottlenecks.
Related: Greece’s Real Estate Crisis: Why Housing Supply Has Collapsed
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