Wednesday, 9 September 2026
Athens has millions of square metres of offices, yet companies looking for modern, efficient workplaces are competing for a much smaller selection of suitable buildings. This mismatch is increasingly dividing the market between properties capable of meeting contemporary occupier requirements and older offices facing growing questions about their long-term competitiveness.
Greater Athens had approximately 5.05 million sq m of office stock at the end of 2025, according to market research from Cushman & Wakefield Proprius. Yet the existence of such a large stock does not necessarily translate into abundant choice for companies seeking high-quality premises. Demand has become increasingly selective, particularly among larger domestic businesses and international occupiers. Location remains important, but it is no longer enough. Companies increasingly consider energy consumption, environmental performance, building systems, workplace quality, accessibility and the ability of premises to support changing patterns of work. For major corporate occupiers, property decisions can also form part of wider sustainability objectives.
This is creating several different markets within Athens. At the upper end are recently developed buildings constructed to contemporary technical and environmental standards. These properties benefit from limited supply and attract occupiers prepared to pay higher rents for quality. Alongside them are older buildings that have undergone substantial modernisation and can compete successfully where location and refurbishment quality are strong.
Beyond this sits the broader stock of conventional offices. Many of these buildings remain functional and continue attracting tenants, particularly businesses for which price is more important than environmental certification or premium specifications. Their challenge is that the gap between what they provide and what leading corporate tenants require is becoming increasingly visible. A further group presents a more complicated investment problem. These are buildings where age, configuration, energy performance or technical limitations mean that maintaining competitiveness could require substantial expenditure. For their owners, the question is no longer simply whether a refurbishment is possible. It is whether it makes financial sense.
Modernising an older office can involve far more than replacing finishes and redesigning reception areas. Heating and cooling equipment, electrical systems, lifts, windows, façades, insulation and common areas may all require investment. Improvements in energy performance can add another layer of expenditure, while older buildings sometimes reveal structural or technical problems only once work begins. Those costs have to be considered alongside the acquisition price, financing expenses and the income lost while a building is being redeveloped. The completed property then has to generate sufficient rent to justify the total investment.
This is where location becomes critical. An older office in an established Athens business district may support extensive refurbishment because the completed building can compete for tenants willing to pay premium rents. Applying the same investment programme to a building in a weaker location may produce a technically excellent office without creating enough additional rental income to cover the redevelopment cost. The result could be an increasingly sharp distinction between buildings that can economically be modernised and those that cannot.
Properties with good natural light, efficient structures, adaptable floorplates and strong locations may become attractive refurbishment opportunities. Investors able to acquire them at appropriate prices could reposition the buildings towards the higher-quality segment of the market. Other properties face a more difficult calculation. Deep floorplates, inefficient circulation, poor access or structural restrictions can limit what refurbishment can achieve. In these cases, substantial expenditure does not necessarily create an office capable of competing with modern buildings.
This is the point at which functional obsolescence becomes an investment issue. A building does not need to be empty to become less competitive. It can continue generating rent while gradually falling behind the market. Tenants may become more price-sensitive, lease incentives may increase and periods between occupiers may become longer. At the same time, the amount of capital required to restore competitiveness can continue rising.
For investors, this means that the apparent purchase price of an older office increasingly tells only part of the story. A building acquired at a substantial discount to a new property may initially appear attractive. But once future capital expenditure is included, the difference can narrow considerably. Investors therefore need to assess not only current income but how much money will be required to keep that income sustainable over the next decade.
The same divide can affect financing. Buildings with strong environmental performance, established tenants and limited future capital requirements are easier to understand from a lender’s perspective. Older properties requiring major expenditure carry additional execution, leasing and valuation risks. This does not mean Athens’ ageing office stock represents a problem without an opportunity. The shortage of modern space creates precisely the conditions under which successful refurbishment can generate value. An investor who identifies the right building, buys at the right price and executes the redevelopment efficiently can potentially transform an ordinary property into an asset competing in a much tighter part of the market.
The difficulty is identifying which buildings genuinely possess that potential. This will increasingly require investors to examine physical characteristics as closely as existing leases. Floor depth, ceiling heights, natural light, structural grids, energy systems and accessibility can determine whether an office has another competitive life ahead of it.
For some buildings, the answer may ultimately be that their future is not as offices. Alternative uses could become increasingly relevant where planning rules, location and physical configuration permit. Housing, hospitality and other forms of accommodation may provide viable alternatives for properties where office refurbishment cannot produce sufficient returns. Greece’s lower Golden Visa investment threshold for qualifying commercial-to-residential conversions introduces another factor into this calculation.
This could gradually reshape parts of the existing Athens office market. The best older properties may be refurbished. Others may remain in the lower-cost office segment. Some could be converted to alternative uses, while buildings for which neither refurbishment nor conversion works could become progressively more difficult to trade.
The implications extend to valuations. Owners naturally have an incentive to value properties according to existing income and historical market comparisons. Buyers considering substantial future expenditure may arrive at a very different figure. The greater the required capital investment, the wider this gap can become. That difference can reduce transaction activity even when investors remain interested in the market. A building may have willing sellers and prospective buyers but still fail to trade because they disagree about who should absorb the cost of bringing it up to modern standards.
Athens therefore faces an office-market problem that cannot be understood simply by comparing total stock with vacancy. The city has substantial office space. What is considerably more constrained is the supply of buildings capable of satisfying the requirements of increasingly selective corporate tenants.
That creates opportunities for new development and refurbishment, but it also raises a more difficult question about the future of the existing stock. Over the coming years, the most important divide in Athens offices may not be between occupied and vacant buildings. It may be between properties worth investing in and those where the cost of remaining an office eventually becomes greater than the value the office market can support.
Source: CIJ.World Research & Analysis Team
