A 90 m² apartment in Δήμος Λαρισαίων (Larissa), on the Thessalian plain, has a median asking price of €89,120. The square metre there sells for a median €1,052.53 and rents for €9.66 a month. That is a gross yield of 11.01%. It is the highest of the thirty municipalities we publish, and 2.4 times the national median of 4.67%.
Eighty-five municipalities, seven and a half points of spread
Eighty-five municipalities above 10,000 residents carried enough listings to rank, at a median asking price of €2,708.33 per m²; the top thirty are published. The table runs from Larissa's 11.01% down to 3.54% in Δήμος Γλυφάδας (Glyfada), south of Athens.
That spread is what makes Greece distinctive: the top row pays more than twice the national median, one of the widest gaps from middle to top in any market we rank. The median yield is unremarkable, below Spain's 5.76%, Italy's 6.67% and Finland's 8.79%. The middle of the country is not cheap either.
The ranking is a score out of 100, not a straight sort by yield: it weighs the size of the town and the evidence behind each figure too. Hence Δήμος Αθηναίων (Athens) fifth on 5.79%, ranked above Δήμος Τρικκαίων (Trikala) on 8.95%. Athens has 643,452 residents and 15,316 sale listings; Trikala has 73,891 and 29.
The provincial capitals do the work
Four of the towns near the top of the table are regional capitals of the same kind. Larissa: 136,684 residents, €1,052.53 per m², 11.01%. Δήμος Βόλου (Volos), rank three: 85,803 residents, €1,293.58 per m², €125,000 median asking price, 8.35%. Δήμος Ιωαννιτών (Ioannina), rank four: €1,400 per m², €130,000, 8.0%. Trikala, a few places further down, has the cheapest square metre of the four, exactly €1,000, for 8.95%. Three sit in Thessaly, two on the plain and Volos on the coast; the fourth is Epirus's capital.
Δήμος Πατρέων (Patras), rank two, has the depth the others lack. Greece's third city and its ferry port for Italy: 187,486 residents, a large university, 2,516 rental listings, the deepest after Athens, against 1,738 for sale. It prices at €1,372.05 per m² and yields 8.29% gross. Much of that depth is student demand, and Western Greece has been running above the national unemployment rate.
These cities share a year-round economy that owes little to tourism (administration, a hospital, a farm belt) and square-metre prices between €1,000 and €1,400, a long way under the national median. The rent is paid by people who are there in February, and much of it by students: the University of Thessaly is spread across Volos, Larissa and Trikala, and Ioannina has a large one of its own. That is also the concentration: demand here follows an academic calendar rather than a labour market, turning over every September and tracking enrolment more than the resident count.
The table cannot see September 2023, when Storm Daniel put much of Thessaly under water. Volos went weeks without drinking water; the Pinios flooded Giannouli and Agios Thomas at Larissa; the Lithaios overflowed at Trikala, and homes there were demolished afterwards. Flood-defence work is still under way. The mark the floods left fell on land rather than flats; what they did to asking prices, one snapshot cannot show. Insurance has repriced, though: cover on flood-exposed Greek addresses is written more selectively now, and such cover was never common here. On the plain, the flood map is part of the purchase.
What the high yields are actually measuring
In Larissa the median sale listing is 90 m², the median rental 40.5 m². Ioannina: 85 against 40. Volos: 95.5 against 50. Patras: 73 against 45. Small flats rent for more per square metre, so a rental median half the floor area of the sale median flatters the buyer. Nobody buying that 90 m² flat in Larissa should expect €9.66 per m² for it.
Athens: 71 m² to sell, 68 m² to rent. Δήμος Πειραιώς (Piraeus): 75 against 70. Glyfada: 124 against 110. Where the two sizes line up, the yields are low. The most honest numbers here are the least exciting.
Where the rent column should not be trusted
Δήμος Κασσάνδρας (Kassandra), high in the table on 9.29%, is the clearest case: the western leg of the Halkidiki peninsula, 15,181 residents, a resort economy that opens in late spring, peaks in August and closes for the winter. Buying costs €2,769.23 per m², above the national median; its rental listings come out at €21.43 per m² a month, the highest in the table. All of it comes from 35 listings, priced into a season rather than to a tenant.
A summer rate restated as a monthly figure per square metre is not a long-let yield, and in Greece that is everywhere. Δήμος Φαιστού (Festos), in southern Crete, shows 8.74% off 41 sale listings and 16 rental ones. Sixteen. Δήμος Ηρακλείου (Heraklion) shows it deeper: 1,774 rental listings at a median 45 m² against 956 sale listings at 97 m².
Milder versions abound wherever the rental sample is thin: Δήμος Χαλκιδέων (Chalkida) 33, Δήμος Κορδελιού - Ευόσμου (Kordelio-Evosmos) 32, Δήμος Παύλου Μελά (Pavlos Melas) 39. Eleven of the thirty rows are graded low confidence. Larissa itself is medium, on 160 sale and 90 rental listings. Enough to rank. Not enough to buy on.
Athens, Thessaloniki and the rings around them
Athens ranks fifth on 5.79%, at €2,619.05 per m² and a €190,000 median asking price. It is by far the best-evidenced row in the country. Δήμος Θεσσαλονίκης (Thessaloniki) sits at 4.93% and €2,708.33 per m², the national median to the cent; its median sale listing, 62 m², is the smallest in the table. Piraeus is at 4.58%, Heraklion at 5.33%.
The big-city gap is not weak rents. Athens advertises at €12.63 per m² against Larissa's €9.66, about 30% more. The purchase side closes it: the Athenian square metre costs two and a half times the Larissan one, and a landlord bids against owner-occupiers and buyers who want an exit.
The Attic rows worth a second look are the working suburbs, where the same post-war stock costs less. Δήμος Αιγάλεω (Aigaleo) ranks tenth on 7.04%, at €2,083.92 per m², with a metro station and a university campus; Δήμος Αχαρνών (Acharnes) shows 6.12%, Δήμος Χαϊδαρίου (Chaidari) 6.0%. Thessaloniki's northern belt does the same: Δήμος Νεάπολης - Συκεών (Neapoli-Sykies) 6.28%, Pavlos Melas 4.8%, Kordelio-Evosmos 4.74%, all of them cheaper than the city they adjoin, and the last two thinly evidenced.
At the other end are the coastal south and the affluent north, where yield is not the point. Glyfada: €5,769.23 per m², a €640,000 median asking price, 3.54%. Δήμος Παλαιού Φαλήρου (Palaio Faliro): €4,324.32 per m², 3.7%. Δήμος Κηφισιάς (Kifisia): €580,000 for a median 160 m², 4.67%. The thin yield buys a deep pool of buyers to sell into later: an asset, not an income.
What the table does not tell anyone
Every yield here is gross: a year of advertised rent over the advertised purchase price, nothing deducted. Management, insurance, maintenance, vacancy, agency fees and tax come out of it. On stock this old, much of it built before insulation was standard, maintenance is not a small line. As a rough rule net lands near two thirds of gross, varying by country and by building, so we publish no net figure.
Both sides of the ratio are asking prices: what sellers want, not what they got; what landlords advertise, not what tenants signed. Every figure here is an apartment figure, with houses outside the sample entirely. The geography is the Greek municipality, the dímos, so Athens here means the 643,452 people inside the city boundary, not the conurbation. Populations are 2021 census counts, Festos 2011.
How to read the ranking
The full table, all thirty municipalities with sample sizes and confidence grades, is at /invest/greece. The figures quoted here are the ranking as it stood on 17 August 2026; the page recomputes from live listings, so what you find there may already have moved. Read it with the listings column open: when a yield catches the eye, check how many rental listings produced it, then search the live listings there. The ranking narrows the map; the listings settle the argument.
