Airbnb and Golden visas drive real estate bubble in Europe

The Airbnb market is growing at an enormous pace every year spreading to every city in Europe and driving property prices and rentals up creating a ‘bubble’.

Most of the housing in the city centers are becoming Apartment hotels and the landlords are moving outside cities to live converting their city apartments to hotels for Airbnb. This phenomenon is sweeping Europe

The Golden visa scheme is also attracting large number foreigners especially Chinese, Russians to invest in the property.  The Golden visa schemes in a way are contributing to increase in Airbnb properties with rental and property prices soaring.

Foreigners buying properties under golden visa scheme do not live in the properties and chose to rent it out through Airbnb for attractive rentals.

Airbnb vs Golden visa properties

In Athens, golden visa properties only form 12% of Airbnb listings,  the rest is rented out by locals, assuming all the properties bought under golden visa scheme are Airbnbied out . Similarly in Barcelona, this is only 8%.

Source: Inside the Airbnb

We believe the demand for Airbnb will only rise, with or without the influence of golden visa scheme

With the above figures, while 80% of local property owners are letting out for Airbnb,  less than 15% golden visa property owners are renting out for Airbnb.

To fix this problem of rising prices, The Greek government in order to decouple or  loosen the property market has to quick introduce other golden visa options such as investing bonds, securities for golden visa, if not prices has to go through the roof. Greece last year has announced plans expand the golden visa scheme to include bonds and shares.

Greece has to quickly introduce other golden visa options such as bonds to decouple or loosen real estate from #goldenvisa, else prices will go through roof. https://t.co/q740PeLVOQ

— World Citizenship Council (@wcccouncil) February 19, 2019