ECONOMY

House prices seen dropping 20-25 pct by 2018

House prices seen dropping 20-25 pct by 2018

Property market professionals are expecting house prices in Greece to drop further by up to 25 percent in the next few years, reporting a sudden rise in supply of properties owing to the upcoming repossessions, while demand will continue to fall due to the recessionary measures of the new bailout agreement.

Since end-2008, house prices in the country’s two main cities, Athens and Thessaloniki, have fallen by an average of 45 percent, according to data from the Bank of Greece. The decline for the country as a whole comes to 41 percent.

Therefore if the above estimate proves right, by the time the bailout period is supposed to be completed (in May 2018), the loss in residential properties’ market value will amount to 65-70 percent, or even more in some cases.

Giorgos Litsas, the head of chartered surveyors GLP Values, tells Kathimerini that “just under a year ago, when the agreement between the government and its creditors became known in the context of the capital controls, we estimated that the new bailout deal would entail a further 18 percent drop in home prices. Now, after the measures passed and under the threat of repossessions, we have had to revise the estimated drop in prices over the next couple of years to 20 percent or even 25 percent, particularly when taking into account the shift in supply of houses in a saturated market with no demand.”

Lefteris Potamianos, vice president of the Athens-Attica estate agents’ association, agrees: “Unless something spectacular changes for the better, prices will decline by 20-25 percent from their current level in the next two years,” he says.

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