Greek House Price Growth Slowed to 5.5% in the Second Quarter
Greek apartment prices rose 5.5% year on year in the second quarter of 2026, down from 8.3% for 2025, with growth now led by areas outside the cities.
The Bank of Greece published its residential property price indices for the second quarter of 2026 on 15 September 2026. Apartment prices across the country were 5.5% higher than a year earlier. That compares with 8.3% for 2025 as a whole and 9.1% for 2024, on revised annual data, which puts Greece roughly four percentage points below where it was two years ago and still comfortably in positive territory.
The slowdown is sharpest where the growth was
The geography is the interesting part, because the ranking has turned over.
In 2025, Thessaloniki ran at 9.7% and other cities at 10.3%, while Athens was the laggard of the four regions at 6.6%. In the second quarter of 2026 Thessaloniki is the slowest at 4.7%, other cities have come back to 5.4%, Athens is at 5.0%, and the fastest category is now other areas of Greece at 7.1%, down only from 9.6%.
The aggregate confirms it. All urban areas together rose 5.3%, below the national 5.5%. A national figure that sits above its own urban component is being held up by what lies outside the cities, and in Greece that category covers the island and coastal markets where a large share of cross-border buying happens.
New and old apartments have swapped places twice
New apartments, defined as up to five years old, rose 6.2% in the quarter against 5.0% for stock older than five years. That is a reversal of 2025, when older apartments ran faster at 8.6% against 7.8% for new build, which was itself a reversal of 2024, when new build led at 10.2% against 8.4%.
Three readings and two changes of order is not a trend. The honest reading is that the gap between the two segments is small relative to the slowdown they are both undergoing, and that nothing in this release tells a buyer that one segment is systematically outperforming the other.
What the index is actually built from
This matters for how much weight to put on it. The Bank of Greece states that its indices rest on detailed data reported to its Real Estate Market Analysis Section from 2009 onwards, under Governor's Act 2610 of 31 October 2008, by all credit institutions operating in Greece. The release cites 971.8 thousand valuations reported with a reference period through end-June 2026.
In other words, the series is built from the valuations banks carry out, which makes it broad and consistent but ties it to the financed segment of the market. Cash purchases, which are a meaningful share of foreign buying in Greece, enter it only where a valuation was commissioned.
Against our own numbers
From our 7 September snapshot, the Greek national price level is 2,926 US dollars per square metre, carrying High confidence, with a gross rental yield of 4.38% and a net yield of 3.59% after the 18.07% effective rental tax we model for a standardised non-resident case. Transaction costs run to 12.1%, among the highest in our European coverage.
Our year-on-year field currently carries 5.7% in euros, taken from the Bank of Greece reading for the first quarter. Today's release moves the national figure to 5.5% for the second quarter, and that is the number we will carry at the next update.
Two cautions sit alongside the headline. Our bubble risk score for Greece is 74, in the elevated band, and the price-to-income ratio is 12.0, which is among the most stretched readings in our European coverage. Over ten years the price series is up 87.7% in euros and 97.2% in dollars, so a slowdown from 8.3% to 5.5% follows a decade of compounding, not a flat start. And the index covers apartments only, so detached houses and land sit outside it entirely.
One structural point for a foreign buyer: title in Greece is freehold, but buyers from outside the European Union require permission to acquire property in designated border zones.
Sources: Bank of Greece https://www.bankofgreece.gr/en/news-and-media/press-office/news-list/news?announcement=ac5ae869-3e94-4550-b486-ef00c4292e07