Vacation rental

There's so much we can gain from traveling. From trying new food to learning about different cultures and going on adventures, it's always wonderful to break away from the everyday and do something different, reported 

Property investors are firmly focused on apartments in central Athens and tourism properties such as holiday homes and hotels, according to a National Bank of Greece report.

Innovative property startup Blueground aims to lease out some 50,000 furnished apartments in 50 cities around the world by 2023.

This is a particularly ambitious target given that the Greek company currently manages some 1,500 properties totaling 1.3 million square meters in nine cities: Athens, Dubai, Istanbul, New York, San Francisco, Boston, Los Angeles, Chicago and Washington.

A recovery in Greece's residential property market gained momentum in the third quarter of 2018, central bank data showed on Monday, suggesting an improving economy and growing foreign interest may help property prices rise further.

Short-term property leasing may be associated with furnished apartments and holiday homes through online platforms such as Airbnb and HomeAway, but the service is fast expanding into the office market as well, where needs are equally large and require flexible solutions.

Airbnb is playing an increasingly dominant role in the Greek housing market. The owners of more than 126,000 apartments and houses in our southern neighbor rent them through the platform.

Attica, the Cyclades and Crete account for over 60 percent of the Greek properties that are available for short-term lease on online platforms such as Airbnb and TripAdvisor, according to a report on the sector by Greece's Center of Planning and Economic Research (KEPE), as the total figure of properties available seems to be doubling every year.

The frenzy of investment in properties in the center of Athens is showing no signs of abating, as Chinese, Turks, Russians and Israelis, along with Greeks, continue to acquire apartments with the aim of turning them into short-term rentals as advertised on platforms such as Airbnb and HomeAway.

Athens is successfully tapping the global trend of city break tourism, with the Greek capital enjoying an unprecedented boom of investments in new hotels and homesharing accommodation offered through online platforms such as Airbnb and HomeAway, as one in six visitors to Greece spends at least one night in Athens.

The phenomenon of short-term holiday lets has shaken things up in Athens's residential property rental market, with the cost of renting a flat in Koukaki, near the Acropolis, having risen above rates in the affluent northern suburbs of Ekali and Nea Erythraia.