I have been writing about Real Estate in Greece for some years now. I spent some time working in Real Estate in England, before I moved permanently to Greece twelve years ago. I have also researched and co written a book about buying a home in Greece.

So why, after five or six years of searching the properties listed by Real Estate agents in Corfu, have I still not bought one? The question is more complex than you would think. Let me explain.

Six years ago, we still had a house in England that we were struggling to sell. It was in a bad area, and it took us almost ten years to find a buyer. We received fifty thousand pounds for it. Not a huge amount of money, but a decent sum at the time.

Unfortunately, just before we sold the house in the UK, the property prices in Corfu shot off the end of the scale. Why? Because of the popularity of a number of television programmes on British television that showed people arriving here and finding the home of their dreams.

Now, for the price of a villa twenty years ago, you can only buy a wreck, ready to be demolished. This is not my main disappointment though. The main one is the fact that it is so hard to find a good estate agent to help me in my search.

I realised that this is easier for me than for people overseas who wish to buy here. I know the agents, the ones who can be trusted, the con merchants, the ones only here for a quick buck in the summer months when the island is full of tourists.

So I have set up a new website of my own www.mycorfudreams.com, which offers advice on how to find honest, legal estate agents who will try their best to find you the home of your dreams. The site also has some of my past articles on the pitfalls of trying to buy and build here in Greece.

Just to keep the tone light, I have added some funny true stories and a humorous quiz to find out if you could survive with your sanity intact! Have I found the house of my dreams yet? Watch this space... Negotiations are ongoing. But Greek Orthodox Easter is just around the corner, so there may be a delay in getting results.

More Cowboys than the Wild West

Greece has more cowboys than the Wild West. Cowboys that is, not in the traditional sense of the word, but the English slang sense of Bodgers, people who claim to be able to do something and can't, and people who charge the earth for simple jobs and can't even do those properly.

Let us take Real Estate Agents as an example. There are thousands of these springing up all over Greece, but few of them are actually qualified or licensed. Many have simply set up business here, to claim their share of the rocketing Real Estate market.

Popular programmes on British television have made the dream of living in "Paradise" seem like a possibility for many people currently living in the UK. During the programme a family or retiring couple are taken to a Greek village or resort, and the hostess of the programme takes them around a series of properties. The couple choose a property at the end of the programme and we all wish them well.

The programme is well produced and accurate, so much so that it has become popular daily viewing. But when the real potential buyers begin to investigate the potential property market in the Greek resort they think of as paradise, the reality begins to set in.

There are a few very good estate agents in Greece, but they are very much in the minority. The reality is that many so called agents here are only in it for the maximum amount of money they can take from the dreamers of paradise. If you only have a small amount to spend on your dream home, they are unlikely to show much enthusiasm finding it for you.

They dream of the naïve stranger with three hundred thousand euros plus to spend on a villa, which will stand empty (and protected by the Agents property manager for a reasonable fee) for ten months of the year.

Builders are another form of cowboy, in the negative sense of the word. Everyone here meets a builder who will complete the build for you, build a house to British standards, and work on the side for a lower fee than a local.

But what happens when things go wrong because you didn't use someone qualified, and LEGAL? The building inspector may not pass a building built by cowboy labour. European standards i.e. for earthquake protection are insisted on for a reason by the authorities in Greece. If you used illegal labour to build the house, or even to renovate, it is possible for the tax authorities to come to you years later, and insist that you pay the 
Insurance stamp cover for the Legal builders who should have built the building.

They can even ask you to pay the IKA, Insurance stamps, if you did the major renovation work yourself. Bear this in mind if you think you can save money by doing it yourself, or employing cheap labour. In the end it could work out very expensive for you.

Whoever the professionals are that you employ, let the buyer beware! Ask for the qualification papers and the licenses they should hold. Check that the price includes the Insurance payment and any taxes such as VAT. Ensure that foreign builders are working to the European standards in the work that they do for you. Life may not be simpler, but it will be safer for you in the long run!
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