The real estate in Crete, like in all Greece, is appreciated by foreign customers for many reasons: incredible beauty of nature, perfect sea, developed infrastructure of the Mediterranean state, healthy food, beautiful, spacious accommodation, tranquility and a measured lifestyle. However, it is the Greek real estate market that suffered most from the global financial crisis, and has not yet recovered from its consequences. According to the Bank of Greece, the real estate in Greece was 30-50% cheaper in 2017 than during its peak level of 2008.

Many experts and international portals on real estate called the last year a “turning point” for the Greek market. Agents felt a growing interest from investors, and many of the customers took the opportunity to purchase facilities at reduced prices. For the first time in the last eight years in Hellas, there has been an increase in demand for real estate from local and foreign customers. The Greek property market has prospects. Experts predict growing of housing prices in Greece in the middle of the first half of 2018.

The price per square meter in Greece is lower than in most European countries: in many areas it does not exceed 1 thousand Euros. There is another argument in favor of Greece – an opportunity to obtain a European residence permit when buying a property worth 250 thousand Euros.

In Greece, you can buy both inexpensive apartments at a minimal cost of 50 thousand Euros and luxury villas on the coast at a minimal cost of 1 million Euros. The price is strongly affected by their location and nearness to the sea, as well as by the level of infrastructure, and transport accessibility. In addition, villas on the islands are usually 20-30% more expensive than on the mainland; and traditionally elite real estate is in Mykonos and Santorini, where houses will cost 50% more than the national average. Based on these criteria, the islands of Crete and Corfu are the most popular among foreign real estate customers, including the capital of Athens and the second largest city of Thessaloniki.

If you recently sold or plan to sell your Moscow apartment and plan to buy a property in a warm part of Europe, then it’s worth looking closely to Crete. People usually bay there a second house for recreation where spend several months a year.

Crete is the most southern part of Europe, the most popular and large island in the whole of Greece. It has a well-developed infrastructure, hospitable local people, beautiful weather, a lot of attractions and entertainments. Its climate is a temperate Mediterranean: hot and dry summer, as well as a mild, warm, but sometimes rainy winter. You can confidently say that the weather there is much softer than on the mainland. On the island, there are international airports, and several ferryboats come daily from Athens.

The main buyers of real estate in Crete are foreigners from Eastern Europe, including Russians, there are Germans, French and British. Apartments on these islands can be bought at a price ranging from 50 thousand to 150 thousand Euros (3.5 million – 10.5 million rubles). Townhouses are already more expensive, their initial price is 100-150 thousand Euros (7-10.5 million rubles).

On Crete you can afford to buy a real estate with a budget of a Moscow 2-room apartment’s price: 100 thousand Euros is initial price for a decent apartment or a small cottage without repairs. For 120 thousand – 140 thousand Euros you can buy a housing of a better quality, but there are not so many good offers at this price.

We change a Moscow 2-room apartment to a Cretan one. According to Tranio (an international real estate broker), a square meter of an apartment in Crete costs from 650 up to 4,000 Euros. Throughout the entire country, the maintenance of an apartment costs from 3 up to 5 Euros per month and square meter. The purchase tax is 3%. For example, the cost of a square meter in Heraklion, the capital of the island, is an average of 1150 Euros. At the price of the Moscow 2-room apartment, you can buy in Heraklion a three-room apartment of ​​90 square meters, but the sea will not be very close. On the market, there are also offers almost twice cheaper. For example, there is an offer to buy a two-room apartment of 67 sq. m. in Heraklion for 76 thousand Euros (5.1 million rubles).

It is a question of profitability. What profit can I get from leasing of real estate on Crete? Certainly, it will be a small one. Profitability from leasing is approximately the same on the islands and on the mainland. On islands, housing is rented during the hot season – 6 months in 95% of cases. The rest of the time the object can be empty, and the average annual load will be about 50%. For comparison, in Athens apartments are rented cheaper, but the demand for housing is there all year round. True, some experts on foreign real estate believe that the yield from leasing is on the islands higher than on the mainland of Greece, linking it primarily to the cost of rent and increasing length of the holiday season.

March 2018

The article uses materials from the site https://rugr.gr/obwestvo/