Chinese Buyers Gobbling Up Greek Real Estate

The Greek real-estate boom that has been recorded in the last couple of years is continuing its trend as Chinese buyers are multiplying at a great pace, according to Carrie Law, the CEO of Juwai.com. Juwai.com is currently the largest portal used by Chinese international property buyers. Many Chinese investors take advantage of Greece’s generous ”Golden Visa Scheme”, which allows non-E.U. nationals to attain a Greek residence permit, and as a consequence, an EU residence permit. The only stipulation of the plan is that individuals must invest more than €250,000 ($284,000) in Greek real estate. Law says that ”the number of buying inquiries being made by Chinese consumers on Greek property is now more than four times higher than it was in the fourth quarter of last year.” She adds that ”Chinese buying inquiries increased by 137.5 percent in the third quarter alone.” This explosion in demand from China has understandably attracted the interest of many Greek real estate agents. The Greek developer MD Homes LTD was named among twenty of the world’s best China-focused real estate marketers. The top twenty global real estate firms were chosen as winners of the “Global Chinese Choice Award” by Juwai.com on December 5 ”Mainland Chinese invested $119.7 billion in international property last year,” said Law, noting that she expects investment this year to be up by three to eight percent over that level. That would bring total investment to at least $123.3 billion for the year 2018.