Greece Sotheby’s International Realty says UK demand rose 60 per cent as wealthy buyers look beyond London

British buyers are helping drive a surge in demand for Greek luxury homes after the abolition of the UK non-dom tax regime, according to a new market report.

Greece Sotheby’s International Realty said aggregate buyer demand for Greek luxury residential property reached €6.11bn in the first half of 2026.

That was up 35 per cent year-on-year and 19 per cent above the five-year trend, according to the firm’s mid-year report.

The company said UK buyer demand rose 60 per cent year-on-year, making Britain the fastest-recovering market among the five largest buyer origins.

British buyers accounted for 17.4 per cent of all enquiries, above their long-term average.

Its market report links the rise to the end of the UK’s non-dom tax regime, which was abolished from April 2025.

Greece Sotheby’s said non-domiciled resident buyers had emerged as a new structural category in the Greek luxury market.

The firm said non-dom buyers had no presence in its transaction records before 2024, but accounted for 29 per cent of its 2025 transaction volume.

British nationals made up 53 per cent of all non-dom transactions in the firm’s records.

Greece offers qualifying new tax residents a €100,000 annual flat-tax election on foreign-source income for up to 15 years.

The report said Greece had become one of the main beneficiaries of wealth relocation from London, alongside the United Arab Emirates and Switzerland.

Savvas Savvaidis, president and chief executive of Greece Sotheby’s International Realty, said: “The most important structural development of the last twenty-four months is the emergence of the non-domiciled resident segment.

“From a category that did not exist in our records before 2024, non-domiciled buyers contributed nearly a third of our 2025 transaction volume.

“The majority of this segment is British.

“The Greek non-dom programme is functioning exactly as designed — and the buyers arriving in 2026 are larger, more institutional, and more committed than the buyers we welcomed five years ago.”

Greek domestic buyers remained the largest single national segment, accounting for 18.8 per cent of enquiries.

The report said demand was strongest at the top of the market.

Properties above €5m accounted for 70 per cent of total demand volume, with that segment expanding 45 per cent year-on-year.

Average enquiry value rose to €5.89m, while the median rose to €2.95m.

Greece Sotheby’s said this represented a 28 per cent upward shift and the highest-quality buyer profile in the firm’s history.

The European buyer pool also broadened in the first half of the year.

Demand from the Netherlands rose 199 per cent, Belgium 101 per cent, Spain 470 per cent and South Africa 264 per cent year-on-year.

The Athens Riviera set the mainland benchmark, with a median asking price of about €10,000 per sq m.

The report said branded off-plan developments were priced materially above that level.

Greece Sotheby’s said the market had also shown resilience during the Iran conflict, with demand disrupted for about 40 days before recovering.

By late April, it said demand had exceeded its pre-war pace, while June closed 64 per cent higher year-on-year in value terms.

The firm said Greece’s improved macroeconomic position had also helped attract international wealth.

The report cited the country’s return to full sovereign investment grade across all five major rating agencies for the first time since 2010, and a 50 percentage-point reduction in debt-to-GDP from its peak.

It also pointed to Greece’s residency-permit framework, with an €800,000 minimum threshold in principal zones.

Savvaidis said: “Greece itself has changed.

“Full investment grade across all five rating agencies means Greek property is no longer classified as a peripheral-EU asset for portfolio-allocation purposes.

“This is the backdrop against which we now compete for institutional global wealth — and the first half of 2026 shows that competition is being won.”

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_{Main image: Tosca, a luxury coastal property in Corfu, as demand for high-end Greek homes continues to rise among international buyers. Credit: Greece Sotheby’s International Realty}