By buying a real estate in Greece, the Turks at the same time acquire the “golden visa” for the European Union. Why is that worries conservative Greeks? And how is it generally looking at Turkish real estate investments in general?
The relationship of Greece towards Turkish neighbors has long been complicated, and sometimes ambivalent. Turkey is generally experiencing as an insane and aggressive neighbors – against which Greece must be defended. And that is why Athens allocates more than three percent of their weapons GDP.
At the same time, the Turks are as tourists and investors almost entire Greece (mostly) welcome. And especially when they spend their money on the islands in the area of the eastern Aegean sea, in the straits between Greece and Turkey. Namely, in that area, in the way, otherwise a lot of other tourists from the country and abroad.
In 2024. The number of passengers who came to Greece from Turkey, increased significantly, for about a million and a half people. In 2023. There were only about 800 thousand.
The guests in the small Greek island of Leros in front of the Turkish coast seem to be the right little invasion from Turkey. Until 20 years, LeRos was in a bad voice, as an island where one of the worst psychiatric clinic in Europe is located. And today it is a tourist paradise for visitors from Turkey. Ferry ride from Turkish Turgutreis, near Bodrum, to the islet only takes about an hour. It takes almost ten o’clock from Pirae. And thus during the summer days of the Turk, they stopped by Leros, and some in the meantime on the island bought a holiday house. Domestic rejoice mainly financially wealthier visitors on the other side of the Aegean Sea, guests who know how to appreciate a good meal and drink.
The situation is similar on Lesbos, Chios and Samos. Since the program of simplified issuance of tourist visas for ten islands came into effect (which was agreed after the Mitsotakis – Erdogan in Athens in 2023) the rights of the Navala of Turkish guests has called out, SEEbiz reports. And not just over the summer. Thousands of Turks chose exactly lesbos as the place where the Seker Bayram, ie the end of Ramadan, were chosen by the end of March.
Only the volume of Turkish tourism in Greece is growing, Turkish investments increased. With about $ 548 million in 2024. years, they were still on low level (especially when compared to about 6.8 billion euros of German investment in Greece), but in the allegations of the Central Bank in 2022.
The Turks mainly invest in real estate because it opens that the possibility of obtaining the so-called “golden visa”, with which they have the right to apply for a residence in Greece for five years. After the Chinese, the Turks are the second most numerous group that is interested in that investment program. In the last year, a total of 9,289 requests for the issuance of residence permits were registered in the Greece within the “Gold Visa”. Of that, Turkish citizens submitted 1,356 requests.
This program has helped many rich citizens from EU member states around the acquisition of the right to stay in Greece and other Union countries. At the same time, the program also affected the increase in real estate prices, especially in Athens and Thessalonal, so in the meantime, the Greeks earning average salaries became difficult to find accessible apartments. This happened in Spain, so the new government in Madrid decided to give up the “Gold Visa” program.
The Government in Athens still does not quit that program, but still slowly increases the height of the minimum investment that is needed to gain the right to the “Gold Visa” at all.
At the beginning, foreign investors had to buy a property worth at least 250,000 euros, in order to get the right to a five-year residence permit in Greece. And then at the beginning of 2023. The lower limit rose to 400,000, but only for the Athens, Thessaloniki, Mykonos and Santorini. For other locations, the border of a quarter of a million euros was still worth. From 1. September 2024. The new border is 800,000 euros for the Gari Regions, Thessaloniki, Mykonos, Santorini, ie for islands with more than 3,100 inhabitants. The minimum investment required for the rest of the country now is 400 thousand euros.
Despite this increase, the demand for visas is still large, especially by the citizens of China, the USA, Russia, Israel and Turks. There is still a large enough number of Turkish citizens who can afford the property in Greece, and lately caused the worries of Greek conservative citizens and politicians. Especially when it comes to buying real estate in the Thrace, that is, on the islands of East Aegean.
Concern in Greece
It is a topic that in the meantime are politically instrumentalized in the ranks of the rule of the Nea dimokratia party (ND). A whole range of representatives mainly from the traditional right-handed ranks, they are dissatisfied with Policy of the Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis towards Turkey. Namely, they are, the opinion that the Prime Minister is too much lenient to the Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and try to make him lead a sharper course towards neighbors.
In addition, the extremely right party is blowing for the neck of the ND conservative representatives. The rating of extreme rightists is growing in newer surveys, and that is why the Conservative politicians of the ND are trying to profile as an even bigger, even more screwed patriot. Thus, for example, at the end of March eleven worried representatives of the ND in parliament asked what was happening with the “aggressive purchase of real estate” by Turkish origin persons. They demanded all competent ministries records the total volume of these real estate work in the area of Thrace, Lesbos, Minos, Chios and Dodecanes. The answer, though, is still waiting, but what is already clear now: the Group of the ND dealership managed to profile in the public.
The concern also has other parts of the Greek public. Some fear that they could be Turkish spies or mobs among customers. There is no official confirmation for that. But according to information from government circles, the current Greece Secret Service EYP really more intensively checks some jobs around the sale of real estate.
In reality, they seem, worries about the “aggressive purchase of real estate” after all. Among the new, Turkish owners of the real estate in the mentioned islands, as well-oriented people, who have already gotten to leave, are simply to enjoy a politically less turbulent country – or it is about people who targeted in a stable and relative cheap Greece.
Numerous customers mostly cheaper real estate in Thrace, in the region that borders Turkey, are Muslims of Turkish origin that have a citizenship of a member of the EU, people working in Germany, Belgium or Northern Europe. These are people who do not want their retirement in Turkey in which there is an increasingly aggressive political and religious regime in power, but on the ground of the EU, but at the safe distance to their (former) homeland.
