Greece’s housing market is finally showing signs of cooling after almost a decade of rapid appreciation, with apartment prices rising 5.5% year-on-year in the second quarter of 2026, according to the latest Bank of Greece data.
The increase slowed from a revised 6.6% in the first quarter and from an average 8.3% in 2025. New apartments, defined as up to five years old, increased 6.2% in Q2, while older properties rose 5%.
Greek apartment prices have risen around 94% since the market recovery began in 2017, leaving them 11.7% above their previous 2008 peak. New-home prices have climbed 98.7% since 2017 and are now 16.5% above their 2008 high, while older homes have gained 91% and stand 8.8% above the previous peak.
Athens prices have more than doubled since 2017
Apartment prices in Athens rose another 5% year-on-year in Q2, while Thessaloniki recorded a 4.7% increase. Other major cities were up 5.4%, while the rest of the country continued to outperform with growth of 7.1%.
Since 2017, prices in Attica have increased 110.9%, putting the Bank of Greece index 16.7% above its 2008 peak. Thessaloniki has recorded cumulative growth of 106.8% and is now 9.1% above its previous high.
In Attica, older properties have actually outpaced new construction over the period, rising 111% since 2017, compared with 109.3% for newly built homes. That unusual pattern has been linked partly to Greece’s subsidised first-home programmes.
‘My Home II’ effect begins to fade
The €2 billion My Home II programme was designed to support up to 20,000 first-time buyers, offering mortgages of as much as €190,000 with 50% of the financing interest-free.
By June 10, 15,193 loans worth €1.83 billion had been approved, while 12,266 borrowers had already signed loan agreements worth almost €1.34 billion, according to Greece’s ministries of Economy and Social Cohesion.
New applications effectively ended in May, while the final deadline for signing loan contracts was August 31. That means one of the strongest recent sources of subsidised demand for eligible older apartments is now largely disappearing from the market.
The Bank of Greece report shows that around 30% of new mortgages granted in early 2026 were linked to My Home II and the separate Upgrade My Home programme. The average mortgage lending rate stood at 3.3% in April.
Affordability remains among Europe’s toughest
In 2025, 26.4% of Greece’s population lived in households spending at least 40% of disposable income on housing, the highest rate in the EU, compared with an EU average of 7.7%, according to Eurostat.
