Houses Hold One-Third Vacancy Rate
- Written by E.Tsiliopoulos
Almost one in three houses in Greece were non-residential in 2011, a report by Hellenic Statistical Authority (ELSTAT) said on Tuesday. The statistics service, in the report, said that the number of houses in Greece totaled 6,384,353 in 2011, of which 6,371,901 were conventional houses (99.8 pct) and 12,452 were non-conventional houses (0.2 pct).
From the total 6,371,901 houses, 4,122,088 (64.7 pct) were residential and 2,249,813 (35.3 pct) were vacant – also because of the crisis that hit the Greek economy. Among vacant houses, 729,964 (11.5 pct) were holiday homes, 621,881 (9.8 pct) were secondary homes, 453,901 (7.1 pct) were offered for rent, 355,071 (5.6 pct) were vacant for other reasons and 88,996 (1.4 pct) were offered for sale.
The top three regions of the country with the most non-residential houses were Attica (609,058), Central Macedonia (360,990) and the Peloponnese (198,386).
Portugal (31.9 pct), Malta (31.8 pct), Bulgaria (31.4 pct) and Cyprus (31.1 pct) also recorded high rates in vacant houses in the European Union, while Poland (2.5 pct), the UK (3.6 pct) and Luxembourg (7.2 pct) recorded the lowest rates.
The report said that 22.6 pct of conventional houses in Greece were built in the 1971-1980 period, while 44.7 pct of conventional houses were in flats and 96.1 pct in urban centers.
