Resale properties in Greece usually cost less per square meter than new builds, sit in established neighborhoods and are ready to move into. BUY GREECE® vets every second-hand home with full legal due diligence before you commit.
A resale (second-hand) property in Greece is usually cheaper per square meter than a comparable new build, delivers immediately, and sits in mature neighborhoods where the views, noise and community are known quantities. The trade-off is due diligence: title and lien searches at the Land Registry, building-permit and legalization checks, ENFIA tax clearance and an energy certificate are all essential, and all handled with your BUY GREECE® agent and a Greek lawyer before you sign anything.
Every check above, broken into 22 steps across six phases: what to verify, why it matters, which document proves it, and who is responsible. Opens in Google Sheets, Excel and Numbers on any phone or computer. Tell us where to send it and it downloads instantly.
The apartment in Athens your parents kept. The village house that came down a generation. Millions of Greeks abroad own property they can neither use nor easily sell, because the paperwork, the distance and the language sit in the way. This is the exact problem we exist to solve: sold properly, handled entirely from abroad.
A house that held your family’s summers deserves a considered exit, and a buyer who values it.
A 3.09% transfer tax, charged on the higher of the contract price and the property's objective (tax) value, and no VAT on resale homes. Add notary fees of about 0.8–1.2%, land registry or cadastre fees of about 0.5% and a lawyer at about 1–2% (2026 market guidance); with an agent's commission, all-in costs typically reach 8–10%. A 15% rate for non-EU individual buyers was announced for July 2027 but is not yet law.
Usually yes, once the building has been checked by your own professionals. Verify the building permit and any legalization of past additions, and commission an independent engineer's survey of structure, moisture and systems, which matters most for buildings from before the 1990s. Confirm the title and the KAEK cadastral code as well; 99% of Greece now has published cadastral data (Hellenic Cadastre figures reported by ered.gr, May 2026).
Yes. Outside border areas, foreign buyers, Americans included, need no special approval to buy a resale home in their own name; in practice the purchase needs an AFM tax number, a Greek lawyer and a notary. Non-residents can obtain the AFM remotely through myAADE with a video-call ID check. Non-EU buyers need a committee permit only in border areas such as Santorini and the Dodecanese (Law 1892/1990).
Six checks cover most risks, and your own Greek lawyer should run them before any deposit. They are a Land Registry or cadastre title search for liens and claims, permit and legalization checks, tax clearance including ENFIA, an energy certificate, an independent engineer's survey, and a notary review of the deed. BUY GREECE® runs the same checklist on every resale home it puts in front of clients.
It depends on the goal: resale usually wins on entry price and established neighborhoods, new builds on energy performance and staged payments. On the latest index, new apartments rose 6.2% in a year against 5.0% for older ones (Bank of Greece, Q2 2026). Resale homes carry no VAT; new builds avoid it only while the suspension runs, to 31 December 2026 unless the announced extension becomes law.
Yes, if it is one property at or above the regional threshold with at least 120 m² of main living space. The threshold is €800,000 in Attica, Thessaloniki, Mykonos, Santorini and islands of more than 3,100 residents, and €400,000 elsewhere (Law 5100/2024). A €250,000 route exists only for restoring a listed building or converting a non-residential building to homes. Golden Visa property may be let long-term but not short-let.