ATHENS – Rushing to beat a Sept. 1 rise in the threshold to 800,000 euros ($891,476) in popular areas, rich foreigners are fast scooping up more properties in Greece to get a Golden Visa that brings a 5-year residency permit and passport.

That’s for them and their families, a valuable commodity that allows travel in the European Union but has seen even more homes taken off the market for Greeks, further exacerbating a shortage and driving up prices and rents.

The visa requirement minimum has gradually been raised from 250,000 euros ($278,586) that was among the lowest in the European Union before other countries ended their programs amidst complaints about housing and worries they could be used for criminal activity and laundering money.

Greece remains full bent on the visas despite many properties earlier being turned into short-term rentals on platforms such as Airbnb, enriching the holders and making housing conditions worse for Greeks, emptying neighborhoods.

The New Democracy government, responding to the gripes, raised the level to 500,000 euros ($557,173) in desired spots in the capital and Thessaloniki and islands in demand but that didn’t slow the interest so it’s being increased again.

The new standard will apply in the center of Athens, the northern and southern suburbs and along the coast where the 8-billion euro ($8.91 billion) development of the abandoned Hellenikon International Airport is underway.

Also for Thessaloniki, the overrun islands of Santorini and on Mykonos – where mobsters are said to be control of development but is seeing tourists begin to shy away over its bad reputation – and on islands with populations above 3,100.

To prevent investors from buying multiple small properties they can then put on short-term rental platforms and further dry up the supply of housing, they must buy a single property of at least 120 square meters (1,292 square feet.)

Investors wanting to get in before the requirement rises bought so many properties from April to June that average property value in Piraeus rose 28.9 percent from the same time in 2023, to 2,471 euros ($2754) per square meter, said Kathimerini.

For coastal properties that are expected to be an even hotter market as Ellinikon is being developed the average value is now 3,750 euros ($4,179) which rivals the highest prices across the EU.

Most of the properties are being bought by Chinese, Arabs and Turks but a resistance movement and backlash has developed in the Athens’ anarchist stronghold of Exarchia whose property buyers said they’re being kept out and their homes and apartments vandalized.

The visa not only gives the investors a Greek passport and residency but a healthy return of about 4 percent annually, Kosmas Theodoridis, president of the European Real Estate Brokers Association told the news site.

Piraeus and its suburbs have seen the biggest rise in rents said consultants Delfi Partners, rising 14 percent in the second quarter of 2024 over 2023 and monthly rents up to 10 euros ($11.14) for those units not put on short-term platforms.

But the paper said that real estate professionals noted that many of the properties bought to get the Golden Visa also remain empty and unused or are sold again after a few years without the seller wanting to renew the visa, using them as investments.

Some made a killing by buying properties when the prices were still depressed in the aftermath of a 2010-18 economic and austerity crisis when landlords lowered rents and home prices because people couldn’t afford to pay.