Androulakis: Ban the conversion of golden visa properties into short-term rental accommodation

“Our country is facing a housing crisis which you pretend not to see and which has become gigantic,” stated opposition PASOK-KINAL leader Nikos Androulakis on Friday, while addressing Parliament during Prime Minister’s Question Time. Androulakis, criticising the government measures, stated that its policy does not tackle the problem at its root and asserted that this was evident in the Recovery Fund, where the government had included very few residences.

He said that public statements made by Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis and government officials on the use of real estate “are cynical, incapable of understanding the citizens’s needs for the right to housing.” He accused the government of considering housing “a luxury” and stressed that this must be reversed, while underlining that short-term rentals are putting pressure on social housing in west Attica and the working-class neighbourhoods of Piraeus and other areas. Androulakis also attributed a large share of the blame for the current situation on the ‘golden visa’ programme, saying that this was leading to a ‘dehellenisation’ of many areas and making it difficult for students to find housing.

He proposed either the abolition or an explicit ban on converting properties purchased through the golden visa programme into short-term rental accommodation. “There is only one clear-cut solution: Suspend or abolish the golden visa programme or give golden visas for research and investments and not for real estate,” he said.