Would Marcus
Recommend It?

Corfu is where I live, and it is where I would choose to raise a family in Greece — but I would be doing you a disservice if I didn't explain the caveats. The north-east coast, where the finest properties are found, is genuinely exceptional: landscape, climate, community and water quality that is hard to match anywhere in the Mediterranean. The island has a permanent, year-round population of international families, a handful of good schools, a functioning hospital and a level of infrastructure that most of the smaller Ionian islands cannot match.

The caveat is schooling. If you have children who need a full IB curriculum or a strong British A-level pathway, Corfu's options are limited compared to Athens. Families who have made this work have typically combined local private schooling for younger children with boarding school arrangements for secondary years — which is a significant commitment and not for everyone. If schooling is your primary constraint, I would look at Athens first.

Paxos is the most private island in Greece. It has no airport, a single small hospital, limited year-round infrastructure and almost no public property inventory. For the right buyer — and there is a specific type — it is exceptional. For the wrong buyer, it is isolating.

What makes Paxos work as a first Greek home is if you are serious about privacy, happy to use Corfu as your operational base for schools and medical appointments, comfortable arriving by ferry or private boat, and content with a small, deeply loyal community of permanent international residents. The island rewards commitment. It does not suit those who want to "try out" Greece — it is a decision, not a dip of the toe.

Properties on Paxos almost never appear publicly. The finest estates trade between families with existing island connections. If Paxos is what you want, the only way to access it properly is through someone who has those connections. I do.

This is the question I am asked more than any other. The romantic answer is always the island. The practical answer is almost always Athens — particularly for families with children, professionals who travel frequently for work, or buyers who want Greece as a primary rather than secondary residence.

Athens has become a genuinely compelling city in the last decade. The Riviera — Vouliagmeni, Glyfada, Vari — offers coastal living with world-class schools, private hospitals, daily direct flights to London, New York and the Gulf, and a social and cultural life that no island can replicate. It is also where capital appreciation has been sharpest: 14–22% in prime locations in 2024–25.

The island answer — Corfu, Paxos, Mykonos, Paros — is right when lifestyle is the priority over infrastructure. When the question is "where do I want to spend my summers and perhaps eventually retire?" rather than "where do I want my children to grow up and my business to run from?" I push back on the island choice less hard.

Mykonos has delivered exceptional capital performance and remains one of the strongest rental yield markets in Greece. But I am careful about recommending it to clients who are buying primarily to live there, rather than primarily to invest there. As an investment with personal use — a villa that earns significantly in summer and that you enjoy in May and October — it works very well. As a permanent or near-permanent base, it has real limitations: it is seasonal by nature, the permanent community is small, healthcare is limited, and pricing reflects demand that is driven heavily by tourism and reputation rather than pure liveability.

The supply constraint is real. Strict planning laws on Mykonos mean no new development of scale. That structural scarcity is what continues to drive pricing. For buyers with a clear investment thesis and realistic expectations about lifestyle, it remains a strong market. Aristi covers Mykonos directly and has access to inventory that is rarely publicly listed.

Paros is the market I am most bullish about for buyers who want a Cycladic base without the pricing, seasonality and social character of Mykonos. It has a genuine year-round community, a strong local economy, direct ferry connections and a quality of landscape — white marble villages, clear water, olive groves — that genuinely rivals its better-known neighbours.

The international buyer community on Paros is growing but not yet dominant. Pricing still offers value relative to Mykonos for comparable property. The market has been moving consistently for three years. Aristi is based there for significant parts of the year and has access to pre-market and off-market opportunities that are simply not findable through any public channel. I think Paros in 2026 is where buyers who missed Mykonos ten years ago wish they had been paying attention.

Lefkada is the Ionian island that serious buyers overlook most consistently — usually because it doesn't have the reputation of Corfu or the scarcity cachet of Paxos. That is, in my view, precisely why it is interesting. It is connected to the mainland by road bridge, which makes it significantly more accessible than any other major Ionian island. It has reliable high-speed internet across its main towns. Property values remain below Corfu's despite comparable landscape quality. And it has a growing international remote-working community who have discovered that the combination of Ionian water, reasonable cost of living and genuine connectivity is hard to find anywhere else in Greece.

For remote workers and digital professionals who want a primary Greek base rather than a holiday home, Lefkada deserves serious consideration. I am not yet seeing the client volumes here that the location merits, which suggests the window of opportunity remains open.