How Airbnb Turned Entire Athenian Neighborhoods Into Tourist Zones — While Greeks Struggle to Find a Home

The shift is captured in a particular moment. As you ascend from Monastiraki toward the Acropolis’ slopes, you see something that wasn’t there ten years ago: little grey lockboxes bolted to gates, wedged against drainpipes, grouped by the front doors of structures that once belonged, completely and silently, to their occupants. A single stairwell may hold one, two, or occasionally six or seven people. Every one of them has a unique four-digit code and is waiting for a different traveler. It’s difficult to ignore the fact that these little, largely unremarkable lockboxes provide a more accurate picture of the city than any official report.

Athens is now used as an example of what happens when short-term rentals expand more quickly than the regulations that govern them. There are now almost twice as many rooms available in central Athens via websites like Airbnb as there are hotels in the city. That is not a coincidental fact. This means that a landlord who has already determined how much more a nightly rate yields over a yearly lease competes with an average resident for an apartment in neighborhoods like Koukaki and Kolonaki. Rarely does the tenant benefit from the math.

At last, the Greek government took action. Legislators discussed a number of restrictions in January, including prohibiting basements and former warehouses from using the platforms, requiring rentals to adhere to basic residential standards, and placing a one-year ban on new short-term licenses in the busiest districts. The €20,000 fine for violations is the kind of amount intended to draw attention. Olga Kefalogianni, the minister of tourism, described it as quality control. “We are introducing minimum operational and safety standards because this is a tourism product,” she stated. The final sentence, “tourism product,” says it all. In the eyes of the market, housing has subtly changed.

Walking through Exarchia gives the impression that the tension has been building for much longer than the legislation. As early as 2019, when activists spray-painted “Evict Airbnb” on rental doors and jammed locks with nails, the neighborhood—known for its anarchist politics and deeply ingrained local culture—became a flashpoint.One online statement said, “Instagram tourists, the police won’t save you.” Once the provocation is removed, a genuine grievance still exists. Longtime tenants have witnessed neighbors being replaced by rolling suitcases at two in the morning and cafés taking the place of bookstores.

The feeling is reinforced by numbers. Between 2017 and mid-2024, Greek house prices increased by about 69%, significantly exceeding wages. Approximately half of Airbnb listings in central Athens are managed by professional hosts, according to a different iMEdD investigation. These hosts are small operators who stack several properties into portfolios rather than retirees with spare rooms. This change has been gradual but significant, moving away from the sharing economy’s initial couch and spare bedroom pitch. Aristotle University researchers came to similar conclusions about Thessaloniki, finding patterns of displacement that anyone who had read about Lisbon or Barcelona would recognize.

It’s important to state the obvious: Airbnb is not the only factor. Greece suffers from a lack of new construction, convoluted inheritance laws, and a protracted debt crisis that hindered residential investment for many years. However, short-term rentals exacerbated all pre-existing issues. The repercussions mount quickly when a city that is already under stress is given a system that incentivizes removing apartments from the long-term market.

It’s genuinely unclear what will happen next. The Athens ban may be extended, relaxed, or quietly lifted. Owners may be persuaded to return to annual leases by tax incentives, or they may simply relocate the professional hosts to Thessaloniki and the islands. Residents seem to have seen this film before and are unsure if the conclusion has been changed. For now, the lockboxes are still there.