In an attempt to stop rich foreigners from scooping up multiple properties and turning them into short-term rentals, Greece has doubled the minimum investment to get a Golden Visa to 500,000 euros ($550,690.)
The lower threshold of only 250,000 euros ($275,350) bought a five-year residency permit for those approved, and the families, and a valuable European Union passport while Greeks in the Diaspora can wait two years or more to get residency or citizenship.
Some foreign investors – no report of how many then lived in Greece or just used the visas to buy a property and the valued amenities – then used it to buy apartments and rent them out through platforms like Airbnb.
That drove many Greeks out of their own neighborhoods, which were turned into transient centers that saw frequent arrivals and departures of tourists wheeling suitcases and staying days before being replaced.
It also served to drive up rents, especially in Athens – including funky, Bohemian areas like the anarchist haven of Exarchia and generally less desirable neighborhoods being essentially gentrified.
The new changes came into effect on Aug. 1, noted SchengenVisaInfo.com, noting it was pushed back from May 1 after Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis changed his mind about the effective date.
Local media reports stressed that new amendments would also be applied in most areas of the country, including the second-largest city of Thessaloniki as well as popular islands such as Mykonos and Santorini.
There was a surge in applications earlier this year after news of the impending raising in the minimum came out as foreigners rushed to get in under the deadline, most from China, which is tightening ties with Greece.
The ending of Golden Visas in Portugal, which was highly desirable, also led to more interest in Greece although the government has shown it wants more despite European Union warnings the scheme is open to money laundering.
According to the figures provided by Greece’s Ministry of Migration and Asylum, the program boosted the country’s economy by nearly 1 billion euros ($1.1 billion) in the first five months of this year.
There were some 3,900 requests for the purchase of real estate for residence submitted from January until May this year, compared to a total of 1,444 in the same period last year.
The increase raised the backlog to 5,444 applications awaiting approval, with no word whether or how they were being vetted for potential criminal activity or for qualification in meeting standards.
From May 2022-May 2023 there were 8,351 investor visa requests submitted to authorities in Greece, of which 35 percent were approved, the report noted although it wasn’t said if the others were rejected or under review.
The site said it was told by a source not identified that in the first months of this year, 1,938 requests were approved, compared to 777 registered in the same period last year, up by 149 percent, and 412 permits were issued in May this year, up more than 220 from 2022.
Read more at thenationalherald.com
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