The Greek economic crisis has hit the housing market hard as new data for the 2009-2014 period show that the median value of Greece’s first residences, declined by 34%, from 106,340 euros in 2009 to 69,834 euros in 2014.
Official data by the Bank of Greece show that in the first quarter of 2017 apartment prices were on average down by 1.8% compared to the corresponding quarter of 2016.
For the whole of 2016, apartment prices declined by 2.4% year-on-year against a decrease of 5.1% in 2015.
By contrast, in the same period, house prices rose by 4% in the eurozone region and by 4.5% in all EU countries.
Eurostat data show that for the first quarter of 2017, the largest increase in prices of homes on an annual basis was recorded by the Czech Republic (+ 12.8%), Lithuania (+ 10.2%) and Latvia.
Apart from Greece, house prices recorded a fall in Croatia (-0.4%) and Italy (-0.1%).
Household prices in Germany rose by 5.1%, in the United Kingdom by 5.6% and in France by 3.1%.