by admin Today’s market conditions are completely different from those that followed the financial crisis and led to the collapse of the real estate market, emphasised the president of the Athens-Attica Real Estate Agents’ Association, Lefteris Potamianos, while speaking at the 3rd Greek-Serbian Forum, held in Thessaloniki. “Today most of the transactions – at least this my feeling and of my colleagues’ from Attica – are done by cash. So, the picture is not the same. This is far from a sharp decline. My personal opinion is that there may has been a “real estate bubble” in certain areas and at certain points due to the excessive interest of some people to buy in certain areas, which has launched up some property prices”.
Nothing is over with the “golden visa” yet
The president of the Association underlined that the government’s decision to increase the amount for someone to get the “golden visa” (to 500,000 euros) by investing in one or more properties in our country, is going to the wrong direction and he estimated that in the end – since the government has not proceeded with the paperwork – the decision might change for the better.
Unrealistic decisions, without consultation from market experts
In relation to the decisions made by respective governments, almost all of the speakers attending the forum, agreed with the remark of the president of Association, that the real market players are never invited to present the real picture in any government meetings. In fact, he brought an example, which is the most recent draft law on objective property values, which considers data from the Municipalities but “does not see” professional brokers as competent parties to participate in the discussion. “When we said (to the government officials) ‘call us to tell you our point of view…we are not doing it for the money’, they never called up,” emphasised Mr. Potamianos and added: “there are injustices in the objective values scheme as it does not update quickly enough. For example, between 2008 and 2018, when the market was falling down, the government was winning (through excessive property taxation), but not for (returning these taxes) you. This is called robbery!”
Source: Anonymous, 19/11/2022