A program that grants residence to investors has brought in needed cash but exacerbated affordability problems in European countries. Is the United States next?
A program that grants residence to investors has brought in needed cash but exacerbated affordability problems in European countries. Is the United States next?
BY MEEHIKA BARUA
When Fani Mari returned home to Athens, Greece, after spending over a decade in London, she was greeted by a new city: High-end tavernas, cafes, boutiques, and a multi-billion-dollar beachfront development called the Ellinikon.
“It’s great to see an area of Athens developing into something useful, green, and modern,” Mari says. “But I’m wary of what will happen with the housing crisis.”
Mari, like many Greeks, is aware these new amenities are geared toward an increasingly conspicuous group of new residents: wealthy international transplants who’ve secured golden visas.
Golden visas, which grant residency or citizenship in exchange for investment, have exploded in popularity in Europe over the past decade. The United States, meanwhile, is considering a new $5m “gold card” visa program floated by the Trump administration.
Donald Trump wants to sell “gold cards” to foreign investors to help pay off the United States’ debts. (Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)
In Europe and beyond, many golden visa buyers have used their citizenship to escape tax burdens or move into countries with a lower cost of living. The countries have benefitted from injections of cold hard cash into moribund economies.
Locals, however, have also noticed the unfortunate side effects: rising prices and property values.
In Athens, fears of displacement and gentrification echo those seen in other global cities that embraced luxury developments and foreign investment programs.
While a flourishing golden visa program and developments like the Ellinikon promise jobs, tourism, and revitalization, Athenians are left wondering whether their country is reviving for average residents — or just for rich investors.
The rise and challenges of golden visa Programs
Golden visa programs, also known as immigrant investor programs, first gained traction in the 1980s when tax havens like St. Kitts and Nevis introduced them to attract wealthy individuals. Around the same time, Canada began offering visas to those who invested $150k in an investment fund.
Even the United States launched the EB-5 visa in 1990, granting green cards for people who invested in a business that employed at least 10 workers. These days, that investment must reach at least $800k.
But it wasn’t until the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis that golden visas became a widespread tool for economic recovery, particularly in European countries like Cyprus, Italy, Ireland, and Spain that used them to rebuild.
Olivia Heller/The Hustle
Portugal started a program in 2012, granting temporary residency status for a minimum $568k real estate investment. It was essentially a bailout for the country: Empty, neglected buildings dotted the landscape of cities like Lisbon, and their depressed prices were still too expensive for locals whose incomes had been ravaged during the financial crisis.
In the next decade-plus, investors would pump$8B into Portugal as part of the golden visa program. But as economies recovered, and pandemic movement precipitated by remote work caused global housing prices to spike, golden visas became less necessary and potentially damaging, as foreign buyers scooped up properties with cash and beat out locals.
In Lisbon, median real estate sales prices soared62% from 2018 to 2024. Portugal ended up modifying its program to grant golden visas for contributing to an investment fund rather than purchasing real estate. Spain and Ireland have scrapped their golden visa programs altogether.
Spain officials announced the end of the country’s golden visa program last year. (Carlos Lujan/Europa Press via Getty Images)
With tighter restrictions on golden visas elsewhere, Greece has become a new top destination. This year, Henley & Partners, a business that assists golden visa buyers, ranked the country as the world’s No. 1 option for an investment to gain residency.
Greece started its golden visa program in 2013 to stabilize housing prices and stimulate growth in a country facing a recession, skyrocketing unemployment, and austerity measures imposed by international lenders. The visa offered residency to non-EU investors in exchange for property purchases as low as $284k.
In 2022, the program received 4.4k applications and nearly double that amount, 8.5k in 2023, according to Murat Coskun, Managing Partner at Get Golden Visa. In 2024, applications reached nearly 9.3k.
This influx of investment in Greece:
Contributed to GDP growth, which rebounded from a low of -9.1% in 2011 to steady expansion in recent years.
Bolstered the tax base, with property-related revenues increasing due to higher transaction volumes and real estate valuations.
Benefited construction and tourism industries as foreign investors renovated properties, launched businesses, and spent within the local economy.
But now, says Alexandros Liaros, editor of the Athens news site Athenstransport.com, the golden visa’s downsides outweigh its benefits.
“I think the program should be limited or scrapped altogether,” he says.
Mini Dubai or a gated community?
In the suburb where he lives, Liaros says foreign residents and golden visa purchasers have bought properties and left them unoccupied, sometimes using them for short-term rentals.
They can easily outbid Greek residents, who, according to Alex Ingrim, co-founder of a financial planning group for American expats, make roughly $17k-$19k per year. That’s about one-fourth of the US median household income.
Housing prices are up, too:
Between 2017 and the second quarter of 2024, property prices in Greece surged by 69%, according to the country’s Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).
In the center of Athens, the average asking price for houses rose from $2.3k per square meter in the fourth quarter of 2023 to $2.5kper square meter in the fourth quarter of 2024, marking a 10.5% increase.
Olivia Heller/The Hustle
Even worse for locals, Ingrim says, “property prices often rise to meet the minimum investment threshold [for golden visas].” That means a $244k property might be re-priced to $284k, enough to cover a golden visa, sending up prices across the market.
The pros and cons of golden visas have come to a head with the development of the Ellinikon. Spanning over 6m square meters, including 2m meters of green space, it will feature 8k homes, five-star hotels, retail destinations, recreational facilities, a marina, and a one-kilometer sandy beach.
“We call it ‘zip code: paradise,’” says Odisseas Athanasiou, CEO of LAMDA Development, which is developing Ellinikon.
For some, the Ellinikon represents a leap forward in modernizing Athens and an opportunity for new jobs. The influx of international investors and tourists could also bolster Athens’ position as a global city, to the point that the Ellinikon has been nicknamed “mini Dubai.”
Athanasiou says the project will have areas open to all Athens residents, spaces for local businesses, and housing types serving a variety of income levels.
“It’s important to us that this project is a positive force for both local communities as well as the international community,” he says.
Others see excess.
Locals fear rising housing costs, with middle and low-income families potentially being priced out of neighborhoods near Ellinikon. A public transit option originally slated for the new development was scuttled, stoking concerns about access.
“Many worry the ‘largest park in Athens’ will be reduced, resembling a gated community instead,” Liaros says.
Residential buildings dot the landscape of Athens below the Acropolis. (Nicolas Koutsokostas/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
Regardless, the Ellinikon project may end up representing the peak of Europe’s golden visa era.
The end of golden visas?
Starting in 2023, the Greek government announced significant changes to its golden visa program, raising the minimum real estate investment from $284k to $910k in high-demand areas like Athens, Thessaloniki, Mykonos, and Santorini, while other regions require $455k.
A $284k investment remains possible but is now limited to startup investment options or properties that support urban renewal, such as commercial-to-residential conversions or historical restorations.
For critics like Liaros, who has long warned about rising housing costs, these reforms might feel like a partial victory.
But Coskun emphasizes that these changes are not a retreat but a strategic shift.
“Greece has not phased out the golden visa program but rather taken a smart approach to balancing investments,” he says.
In fact, Greece has seen golden visa applications spike over the last year because it remains one of the few European countries still allowing real estate investment at this level, given that Spain has ended its program and Portugal no longer exchanges visas for property investments.
Olivia Heller/The Hustle
Soon, though, Greece may have a surprising competitor for rich foreign nationals.
President Donald Trump has discussed replacing the United States’ EB-5 investor visa with a “gold card” program that allows people to pay $5m for residency and a pathway to citizenship.
Trump has said the program could help the US pay off its debt load, and Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency has reportedly been tasked with developing the system, which could be introduced to the public as early as this spring.
Asked who’d buy these gold cards during an Oval Office meeting with reporters in February, Trump had a simple answer.
“People with money,” he said.
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