ECONOMY

US, UK buyers target homes on Myconos and Santorini

US, UK buyers target homes on Myconos and Santorini

Demand for holiday homes on the country’s two most popular islands, Myconos and Santorini, remains huge thanks almost exclusively to foreign buyers taking advantage of favorable changes to currency exchange rates.

“The difference with the rest of the market is so big that we sometimes wonder whether its another country and not Greece,” one estate agent commented.

The weakening of the euro against the US dollar and the British pound has rendered the domestic housing market particularly attractive for American and British buyers. They not only benefit from the considerable drop in the sale prices of holiday homes, averaging at 40-50 percent compared to 2008, but also from the notable strengthening of their purchasing power (by about 20 percent) on the exchange rate shifts.

A survey by Geoaxis surveyors in the first half of the year showed that holiday home prices on the Cycladic islands fell by just 3 percent, against 10.4 percent last year. Were it not for Myconos and Santorini, the drop would have been steeper.
 

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