In pro-Palestine hub of Athens, Israeli buyers increase local resentment

Athens, Greece – Tonia Katerini, a 69-year-old architect, leaned into her computer, scrolling done the spot contracts that she said are remaking her neighbourhood.

Across Exarchia, the Athens territory agelong known for its extremist left-wing politics, flats are being bought up and turned into short-term rentals, pushing retired the radical who unrecorded there.

For months, Katerini and a radical of neighbours person been digitally mapping overseas purchases utilizing nationalist records, marking them with reddish dots.

She zoomed retired from her thoroughfare connected the map; it was a oversea of red.

The balcony doors of her flat, wherever she has lived since 1986, were unfastened and sound from the cafes beneath drifted successful past the plants and stacks of architectural plans.

Her radical says overmuch of the wealth down the rentals is Israeli; by their count, much than fractional of the area’s caller company-run hotels and rentals .

In a neighbourhood wherever Palestinian flags bent from balconies and solidarity slogans screen the walls, that has caused friction.

On her ain cobbled street, wherever the sound of arriving tourists rolling their suitcases wakes her successful the morning, Israeli investors person bought 2 buildings, she said. The level beneath hers belongs to 1 specified company.

“They are bully guys we person downstairs,” she said. “It’s an Israeli company.”

Tonia Katerini successful her level successful Exharchia successful Athens [Nils Adler/Al Jazeera]

A fewer streets away, a residential gathering is streaked with achromatic paint.

“Airbnbs permission america homeless,” reads 1 slogan crossed its facade. “Zionists not welcome,” reads another.

Such buildings are casual to spot. Instead of residents’ names, the buzzer panels amusement lone numbers and a keypad by the doorway releases keys for Airbnb guests.

Across the neighbourhood, activists person splattered keypads and facades with reddish paint.

They accidental short-term rentals are driving an assertive gentrification that is pricing retired locals and erasing the area’s identity.

Foreign wealth has poured into Greek spot successful caller years: non-residents invested a grounds 2.75 cardinal euros ($3.2bn) successful Greek existent property successful 2024, according to the Bank of Greece, earlier easing past year.

No authoritative figures interruption down overseas buyers successful Athens by nationality. But an yearly survey of completed income by the bureau web RE/MAX Hellas recovered that Israelis were the largest radical of overseas buyers successful Attica, the portion astir the capital, up of buyers from Turkiye and Lebanon, reported the Greek play To Vima.

Exarchia’s governmental activism runs deep. In 1973, students astatine the adjacent Athens Polytechnic roseate up against the US-backed subject government, which fell the pursuing year.

In 2008, constabulary changeable dormant Alexandros Grigoropoulos, a 15-year-old Greek student, successful Exarchia, provoking protests that dispersed crossed the country. It came, Katerini said, similar “fire connected adust land”.

As Greece’s indebtedness situation deepened, that choler connected the streets helped propel the left-wing Syriza enactment to powerfulness successful 2015.

A protester confronts riot constabulary successful Athens, December 7, 2008 [John Kolesidis/Reuters]

‘Tenants displaced, flat blocks emptied’

Chrysoulla Papageorgiou, a schoolteacher who has lived successful Exarchia for 24 years, is simply a acquainted look connected its streets. Earnest and straight-talking, the 46-year-old remembers it arsenic “a neighbourhood of solidarity”.

The alteration came slowly, past quickened. At first, tiny owners rented retired a spare room. After the COVID-19 pandemic, companies began buying full blocks.

“Overnight, tenants were displaced and flat blocks emptied,” she said.

Bars opened, spilling tables and chairs crossed pavements connected streets that had erstwhile been quiet.

Rents roseate and migrants and low-income families, galore surviving successful basements and connected the little floors, were the archetypal to go. Schools mislaid pupils and aged bookshops, accepted cafes and grocers closed.

For years, Exarchia residents sheltered refugees successful occupied buildings. Sitting connected premier existent estate, they were among the archetypal buildings constabulary emptied and past sold, Papageorgiou said.

“Half were squats,” she said. “Now we person lone one.”

That past gathering is draped successful painted sheets declaring solidarity with the families inside. Neighbours assistance marque definite the children get to school.

The past gathering successful Exarchia wherever migrants and refugees without lodging tin enactment [Nils Adler/Al Jazeera]

Since 2022, Exarchia Square, agelong the bosom of the neighbourhood’s protests, has been a fenced-off operation tract for a caller metro presumption that galore residents fought against. Riot police, Papageorgiou added, are present a regular presence.

The aim, she believed, is to crook cardinal Athens into determination “purely touristic”.

In caller years, buyers person been “almost lone Israeli”.

Riot constabulary locomotion done Exarchia [File: Nils Adler/Al Jazeera]

Near the quadrate hangs a ample Palestinian flag. Tourists sometimes scrawl anti-Palestinian messages connected its achromatic stripe, and activists overgarment it achromatic again.

Foreign buyers, Katerini said, spot Greece arsenic a safer spot for their wealth than Israel itself, and successful Athens “the authorities is precise affable with Israel”. In August, Athens signed a rocket woody with Israel worthy $3.5bn.

‘A precise bully opportunity’ for investors

Vagelis Lazaridis, a stocky existent property cause who heads a subdivision of the Athens-Attica Real Estate Agents’ Association, talks astir his commercialized with passion. He said the reasons for the investments were purely practical.

Exarchia “was a run-down area” which made it “a precise bully opportunity”, helium said.

It is beside the centre, adjacent to the metro and to universities afloat of students from abroad. Unlike Plaka, beneath the Acropolis, it has fewer gathering restrictions.

Once a fistful of buyers arrive, helium said, others follow.

One of the galore slogans criticising short-term rentals successful Exarchia, Athens, Greece [File: Nils Adler/Al Jazeera]

Greece to go ‘far little appealing’ for Israeli buyers

The authorities is present trying to chill the market.

Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis announced past period that the transportation taxation for homebuyers from extracurricular the European Union would emergence from 3 percent to 15 percent from adjacent July.

“The enactment is implicit successful Greece,” The Jerusalem Post wrote successful a caller report. “The country, which successful caller years has go a preferred destination for Israelis seeking existent property investments astatine tenable prices and with charismatic yields, is astir to go acold little appealing.”

Lazaridis said agents’ associations reason the plan, which has yet to go law. It “may not instrumentality effect, oregon whitethorn beryllium postponed”, helium said.

Agents expect immoderate non-EU buyers to velocity up purchases earlier the deadline, reported the Greek quality tract in.gr.

A ‘tourists spell home’ poster successful Exarchia, October 10 2026 [Nils Adler/Al Jazeera]

‘Fewer Airbnbs’

Not everyone successful the commercialized sees an unstoppable tide.

Iryna Rondyak, who is primitively from Ukraine, runs her ain property bureau adjacent Exarchia. She said that erstwhile Israeli buyers began arriving astir a decennary ago, they made up astir 60 percent of her overseas clients, galore buying full bureau buildings to crook into hotels.

Until astir 2024, foreigners accounted for astir 70 percent of her sales, she said.

This year, it is astir 30 percent, arsenic state-backed mortgages for young Greeks, nether a strategy called “Spiti mou” (My Home), pull section buyers back.

Iryna Rondyak successful her bureau successful Athens, October 10, 2026 [Nils Adler/Al Jazeera]

She credits caller rules for the turnaround.

No caller short-term rental licences are being issued successful cardinal Athens, including Exarchia, and successful September the frost was extended to the extremity of 2027, reported To Vima.

Properties bought nether Greece’s “golden visa” residency strategy tin present lone beryllium fto long-term. While a cheaper way into the scheme, astatine 250,000 euros ($280,000), rewards investors who person bare bureau buildings into flats.

“Anyone surviving successful Greece couldn’t find a location successful the centre. Everything was connected Airbnb,” she said. “Now determination are acold fewer.”

It is “a small better,” she said, but “the occupation inactive exists”.

Rents stay high, astatine 10 to 15 euros ($12 to $17) per quadrate metre, adjacent successful the confederate suburbs, she said. Many flats beryllium bare due to the fact that owners find renting them retired is not worthy the taxation bill.

A gathering successful Exarchia converted into Airbnb rentals has been pelted with overgarment by activists, October 10, 2026 [Nils Adler/Al Jazeera]

Residents are little convinced.

The rental frost is temporary, they say, and investors with capable wealth tin inactive find ways in. Nor does it undo what has already happened: galore of the neighbourhood’s buildings are already short-term rentals.

Back successful Exarchia, Papageorgiou counts herself lucky.

Her landlady, whose household has lived successful the country for generations, refuses to rise the rent arsenic an “act of resistance”.

Papageorgiou said jokingly that her landlady’s accountant has told her she is ruining the market.