House price drop second to worst in the world
Greece has the unenviable distinction of having the second to worst performing residential property market in the world this year, according to data up to the end of September.
A Global Property Guide survey shows that the annual price decline in Greece came to 6.03 percent, second only to Dubai in the United Arab Emirates (-10.4 percent). Compared to the second quarter of the year, Greece’s price slide amounted to 2 percent in Q3.
Among European Union member-states, Cyprus was a distant second behind Greece, with a 2.2 percent annual decline in home prices, while Spain was in third after seeing a small drop of 0.45 percent.
As Bank of Greece data also show, pressure on the market prices of residential properties continues, albeit to a lesser degree that previously. However, an Alpha Bank analysis revealed that after seven consecutive quarters of slowdown in the annual price reduction rate, the trend reversed in the second and third quarters of this year, when the decline accelerated again to 5 percent and 6.1 percent respectively, against a drop of 3.9 percent in Q1 on an annual basis.
Apartments in particular saw a milder decline this year, suffering a 5 percent drop in prices in the first nine months against an 8.1 percent slump in the same period of 2014 and a 7.5 percent decline in the whole of 2014. Apartment prices have dropped 40.9 percent from 2008 up to end-September 2015.
The central bank forecasts that the slide is unlikely to reverse in the coming quarters, as the factors that have led to it have not been eliminated.
