Greek property news

This article is brought to you by holidaylettings.co.uk

Would you like to rent out your Greek Island villa?

Early indications from holidaylettings.co.uk show that there is a definite trend towards last minute bookings this year. Already May has matched January for the number of holidaymaker enquiries sent to owners, a 52% increase on May 2008.

This trend has gained momentum during June with record numbers visiting the site including in excess of 100,000 searches a week for late deals. July looks set to do the same, if not more, so now is a great time to get your property online and generate bookings for the summer.

By advertising your holiday home in Greece with holidaylettings.co.uk you’d be joining more than 20,000 holiday home owners who advertise in excess of 30,000 properties on the website. Every month they attract more than 2 million holidaymakers to the site searching for self-catering holidays and booking directly with you the owners.

holidaylettings.co.uk take no commission on your bookings, so the income you generate is all yours. When setting up your advert you can include up to 20 colour photographs at no additional cost and you have space for an unlimited amount of text to describe your property, the local surroundings and interesting things to do. You have 24/7 access to your advert so can easily update your availability as and when you receive bookings. You can also opt to receive free SMS text messages to alert you to enquiries when you don’t have immediate access to your emails.

In addition, we’ve negotiated a special offer for all of our clients….

Advertise with holidaylettings.co.uk and in your first year get 15 months for the price of 12, that’s an extra 3 months worth over £45.

Click: http://www.holidaylettings.co.uk/whychooseus.htm/from.45922/ or quote promotional code 45922 when registering.

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By HPGoodchild

Stafilos Skopelos is a very popular bay, although, often, very crowded in high season as the beach is only 4 Kilometres south of Skopelos Town, you can have it to yourself out of season! It is easily accessible by the public bus or car.

Stafilos Skopelos Greece

The first settlers to the island were the Minoan race from the Island of Crete. The leader of the settlers was named King Stafilos and the area that was first inhabited on the island still bears his name. A sword handle was discovered in a tomb believed to of the King himself, on the promontory of Stafilos.

Stafilos bay has two beaches - Stafilos and Velanio. Velanio is quieter as it’s the farthest to walk and it is also Skopelos’s nudist beach. Both beaches have sunbeds and umbrellas. By the entrance to and above Stafilos beach is a lovely traditional taverna with spectacular views across the bay offering fresh fish. Steps lead down to the lovely pebble/soft shingle bay and crystal-clear waters making it very safe for youngsters.

HPGoodchild’s ready to live in five bedroom house is near Stafilos and is for sale. The whole property is in good decorative order throughout. It is a good opportunity to purchase a fine home just a short walk from Stafilos beach and local tavernas. Anna runs the family owned local supermarket in the area which is less than 2 minutes walk from the house.

This beautiful, large, marble floored house is on 2 floors and can either be used as a substantial family home or, 2 self contained properties or, business (Rooms to rent).

The olive grove of 19 olive trees and working well complete with pump-house is also included in the sale. The property falls within the town boundary and therefore building an additional dwelling in the olive grove with its own access from the “Old Stafilos Road” is an option.

The house is set back from the Stafilos Road with a vine covered driveway leading to the house. The front garden consists of an orchard of apples, pears, apricot, cherry and janero fruit trees. In addition to the vines lining the driveway there are also vines along the side wall producing abundant grapes. The rear of the house has ample space for outside entertaining under the shade of mulberry trees.

Connected services include electric, telephone, town water and free spring water from the well!

It is priced at:  Euro 350,000 and is near Stafilos Beach on Skopelos - Mamma Mia Island, Greece.

For more information on this house please see:

House for sale in Stafilos, Skopelos Greece

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Edited weekly Euro update provided by Deane Roe of Moneycorp

As the sterling  grows stronger against the euro, now is the time  to buy houses or land in Greece

UK industrial production rises in April. G8 endorses dollar as reserve currency. Euroland industrial production continues to fall

The pound powered ahead from last Monday’s €1.14 opening. It paused at €1.16 on Tuesday before proceeding up to €1.1750, where it opened in London Monday morning.

A much-reduced flow of UK economic data did no harm to sterling. The figures were a long way from perfect but they were an improvement over what had gone before. Even more important, they were generally better (or less worse) than anything the opposition could produce. The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors and the government both saw a slowdown in the falling price of real estate. The best news of all came with the manufacturing and industrial production data for April. Both were up on the month. Industrial production rose by 0.2%, slowing the annual rate of decline from 13.1% to 12.7%.

With the ratings agencies still on the rebound from their overgenerous treatment of sub-prime securities they are showing how tough they can be. Ireland has become one of their favourite targets. Standard & Poor’s awarded it another downgrade last week, the second in as many months. It went down from AA+ to AA and there could be more to come. Ireland is not Euroland but its downgrades - and those of Greece, Portugal and Spain - do not help sentiment towards the euro.

Sterling has at last laid to rest the spectre of endless technical resistance in the €1.15-€1.17 zone. Britain’s economic data remain consistently better than those coming out of the Euro zone. As long as this continues the pound will have scope to extend its recovery. Buyers of the euro Investing in property or buying a holiday home in Greece should ratchet their stop order higher again, this time to somewhere below €1.17. The next obvious obstacle is the psychological one at €1.20. Beyond that the more important technical resistance is the early December high in the region of €1.2150. In time that too should give way but perhaps not without another visit to €1.16 in the meantime.

It is always best to transfer large sums of money to Greece via the commercial rate and not the tourist rate.

For information about setting up a bank account in Greece and Skopelos please see: Legal info

For more information or to find out about the best ways to transfer money to Greece and Greek Islands

Please contact:

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This article is brought to you by holidaylettings.co.uk

As of July 1, owners letting out their villas in Greece will have to inform guests of the new rules. Tourists will have to use sealed off smoking areas if they want to light up in bars and restaurants - the new legislation will apply to establishments over 70 square metres, according to The Daily Telegraph.

Smaller premises must opt to either accept smokers or completely ban tobacco. Should the bars and restaurants choose to ban smoking, anyone found to be having a cigarette illegally will face a fine of up to 500 Euros (£425).

Legislation was passed in 2002 and 2003 that outlawed smoking in public spaces, but was largely ignored. However, Greece’s health minister, Dimitris Avramopoulos, feels the smoking ban will be well received this time: “Our society is more ready than ever to embrace this.”

Avramopoulos hopes that the nation’s attitude towards smoking will soon change. “In Greece we are used to saying that laws are passed but not enforced…this is the start of an effort to change the mentality on what is this country’s most crucial public health issue.”

Advertise your property in Greece with holidaylettings.co.uk and receive 15 months for the price of 12 in your first year. Click: http://www.holidaylettings.co.uk/whychooseus.htm/from.45922/ or quote promotional code 45922 when registering.

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Edited weekly Euro update provided by Deane Roe of Moneycorp

A promising start to the week took sterling up from €1.15 on Monday morning to a high of €1.1650 on Wednesday, whereupon it all went sour. A rapid two-cent fall at that point was followed by more damage on Thursday and the pound began Friday below €1.13. Investors have been surprisingly kind to the pound since then and it opened in London this morning at €1.14.

The economic data continued to favour sterling at the beginning of the week. Once again Britain led the way in the Purchasing Managers’ Index stakes with the UK manufacturing PMI rising nearly two points to 45.4. The Euro zone measure also improved, to 40.7, but was still adrift. The German figure was well behind at 39.6.

It was even better news on Wednesday with the services sector PMIs. Investors had been looking for a one-point improvement to 49.5. What they got was a three-point increase to 51.7, putting the UK services PMI in the expansion zone for the first time since April last year. The equivalent Euro zone figure was seven points behind. And
Edited weekly Euro update provided by Deane Roe of Moneycorp

what was the reaction of investors to this outstanding news? Why, of course they sold the pound. Sterling/euro’s six month high coincided precisely with the announcement, suggesting that speculators had used the good figure to offload their long positions.

Beyond the PMI figures the Euro zone had little to say for itself apart from a modest 0.2% retail sales uptick in April that left the overall level still 2.3% lower than a year earlier. In Euroland, as in Britain, the central bank decided against adjusting its policy interest rate, preferring still to go down the “quantitative easing” route and buying covered bonds (or, in the case of the Bank of England, gilts).

The combination of technical resistance and politics has put sterling on the defensive, particularly against the US dollar but also against the euro. The big risk is clearly politics and not, at least for the moment, economics. New Labour has been slaughtered at the European and local government elections and there has been a similar, broadly anti-left, backlash throughout Europe. If Mr Brown finds himself with another wobbly cabinet the market may again take it upon itself to teach sterling a lesson. Buyers of the euro investing in property in Greece or buying a Greek holiday home should place a protective stop order in case of disaster but otherwise look for the pound eventually to break above its current constraints.

It is always best to transfer large sums of money to Greece via the commercial rate and not the tourist rate.

For information about setting up a bank account in Greece and Skopelos please see: Legal info

For more information or to find out about the best ways to transfer money to Greece and Greek Islands

Please contact:

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A blog By HPGoodchild

Easter in Greece is a real treat and on Skopelos it is an experience not to be missed. We travelled out to Skopelos this Easter via Athens flying from London Heathrow on British Airways. We then transferred to the Olympic flight to Skiathos where we stayed overnight in the Meltemi Hotel which we can highly recommend for a warm welcome and a pleasant stay.

We then travelled onwards next morning from Skiathos to Skopelos aboard the Flying Cat 6.

This year our Easter weekend began with a Good Friday tour of the main churches to view each of the amazingly flower decorated biers containing their individual saints icon and symbolic items of Christ’s death.

Easter in Skopelos

Later on that evening, after gathering at our “home” church we processed through the town by candle-light (brown candles) following the bier. As each church was passed it too joined the procession with its own bier. The procession echoed to the chant of the “Kyrie Eleison” - “Lord have mercy” culminating with the whole town singing on the paralia.

On Easter Saturday night we once again returned to our “home” church with white candles and hard boiled eggs dyed red to await the announcement that “Christ is Risen” and the sharing of the priest’s ‘holy flame’ until the whole square is illuminated with flickering light. Everyone then makes their way to the local tavernas to share in the lamb feast breaking the fast of Lent, this time to the echoes of fireworks and ferry ship sirens.

Greeks mainly colour eggs red (scarlet) to signify the blood of Christ. They use hard-boiled eggs (painted red on Holy Thursday) which are baked into twisted sweet-bread loaves or distributed on Easter Sunday; people rap their eggs against their friends’ eggs and the owner of the last un-cracked egg is considered lucky.

Red Easter eggs in Skopelos, Greece

After the Easter celebrations we had an unexpected visitor to our garden in the form of a Greek Black Eared Wheatear (I think!) The variety of birds we see in our garden in Stafilos is amazing including Hoopoes, Golden Oriels, Bee-eaters and many more.

Birds in Skopelos

We had a fantastic time at our house in Stafilos but all good things must come to an end as we had to fly back to London. A real bonus was finding a Hotel called Peris just outside Athens airport.

Peris is Situated only 10 minutes from the northern gate of ΕΙ. Venizelos airport, 10 minutes from the port of Rafina and 900 meters away from the beautiful beach of Loutsa (Artemis).
It is a new building, built in 2004 with small bar and twelve rooms, each fully equipped with satellite TV, telephone, central heating/air condition.
They also offer a transfer service free after 7am and early evening and at any other time for a small fee!
They offer you quietness and comfort for a pleasant stay at sensible prices.
Tel. : (+30)22940 83 763

HPGoodchild’s house is for sale. The Price is €350,000
Please see: House for sale in Stafilos, Skopelos Greece

It is near Stafilos Beach on Skopelos - Mamma Mia Island, Greece.

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