2023 was quite a year for the sector as there were two electoral periods and the abstention of notaries from their duties at the end of the year. Unveilling market data for 2023 as well as the first months of 2024 during the 17th RED Meeting Point, Mr. Vassilis Patras, Business Development Director of the Landea.gr platform, emphasized that the two factors above significantly affected the market last year as despite registering a 21% increase compared to 2022, completed auctions were down 7%.
"Despite the fact that we had reduced auctions that were conducted, those that in the end had a "winner" i.e. a buyer recorded an increase of around 6%" Mr. Patras emphasized and added that: "this fact also shows the dynamics of the market".
Both he and other real estate executives point to a severe lack of inventory, which is driving up prices and making auctions, they say, more attractive as an alternative way to buy property. During the period under review, the value of auctions had a marginal decrease compared to the previous year and was over €1.1 billion.
According to the data collected and presented by Mr. Patras "there is an increase in the average price within a year, which in Attica reached 16% and in Thessaloniki 9%". However, it is worth mentioning that 3 out of 4 properties have been bought at the price which is either the price of the first offer or with a very small increase compared to it (1%). And only 1 in 10 properties has increased in price by more than 30%.
At the same time, according to the data, apartments are the ones that have the greatest chance of increasing their price during the auction compared to single-family houses or maisonettes.
The changes in 2024
In the market in 2024, auctions posted in the first quarter of the year are almost at the same levels relative a year ago. Nevertheless, there was an increase of more than 50% recorded. According to the data gathered by the platform specifically for apartments throughout Greece, an increase of 53% was recorded and the average price per square meter has a slight increase of 3.4%. For the next seven months, 20,300 property auctions have already been planned across the country worth €2.53 billion.
As Mr. Patras underlined, "the reason that strengthened the auction market in the last two years or so was mainly the increase in real estate prices in the mainstream market. This led many prospective buyers to see the auction market as an 'alternative' for acquiring apart from this, something else that has changed is that there is now the possibility of bank financing for the purchase of property from an auction, which did not exist 1.5 years ago".
Finally, yet another important change in the market is that there is a quick and automatic process of reducing the original price of a property. "This means that if a property is auctioned twice and these auctions are barren then the third time it will be auctioned at 80% of the original price and if again it is barren then it will be auctioned at 65% of the original price " he noted and mentioned that "for a property that starts the auction with €100,000 it can reach €65,000 starting price in a very fast period of 3-4 months".
