ATHENS – Short-term rentals in Greece exacerbated by rich foreign Golden Visa holders scooping up properties and converting them has not only driven up rents and home purchase prices but cut into the hotel business as well.

Hoteliers said they are finding it difficult to compete with the platforms such as Airbnb that can give renters whole apartments or homes, so popular that many landlords stopped long-term rentals, driving out renters and emptying areas.

It’s proved a bugaboo too for Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, whose government has sought the investors and is now trying to limit wholesale conversion of properties they buy into short-term rentals.

Despite those measures, more property owners are using their units for short-term with the government looking for schemes such as tax incentives not to do that, too late for the thousands of homes and apartments already off the market.

At the same time – despite more luxury resorts and high-end hotels catering to rich tourists – the number of new hotel rooms isn’t keeping pace with the short-term rentals and most hotels aren’t lavish.

The housing shortage also has made it difficult or impossible for tourism workers and state doctors and teachers posted to islands to find a place to live, some reportedly sleeping in their cars because they can’t afford exorbitant rents.

It’s the same for students who go away from their home areas to other cities and towns where the problem is also getting worse even as the government tries to find ways to control it while still luring more investors.

A report by the global accounting giant Grant Thornton’s Athens branch that was presented in the capital said that short-term rentals also have a deep impact on the environment, including waste generation and energy consumption.

There are also now more beds for short-term rentals – more than one million –  than in hotels, which have about 880,000 according to data from the Institute of Greek Tourism Enterprises (INSETE) which has tracked trends.

There are benefits to the short-rentals too, including higher income for property owners, although that’s proving difficult for tax inspectors to trace, and it has helped the economy, the main aim of the government.

There are disputes, with Nasos Gavalas, President of the Association of Short Term Rental Companies (STAMA,) telling Kathimerini he doubts the findings as the report was commissioned by the Hellenic Chamber of Hotels.”

He asserted that the figures used to record market data are incorrect and that entries were counted without any qualitative analysis. “It must be made clear that the short-term lease only has an AMA (Property Registry Number) and the exact number of active properties (with at least one reservation per month) is known only to the Independent Authority for Public Revenue (AADE),” the tax agency, he said.