Plenty of owners come to us asking about management and leave having signed something else entirely. Not because we talked them into it, but because once they hear how leasing an apartment to a company works, they recognise what they actually wanted: a fixed sum every month, no calendar, no guests, no surprises in February.
It is the less understood of our two products and the most abused phrase in the Athens market, because guaranteed rent gets promised in places where it cannot exist. So here is what it actually is, what you sign, and where its cost sits.
What you are actually signing
Under leasing, UPSTREET becomes the tenant of your apartment. You sign an ordinary multi-year lease, the same instrument you would sign with any tenant. The differences are that your tenant is a company with a balance sheet rather than an individual, and that the apartment will be sublet to guests.
That is the crucial point and it deserves stating plainly: the rent you receive is not a yield projection. It is a contractual term. It lands in your account whether the apartment is full in August or empty in January. Vacancy risk moves from you to us, and that transfer is the entire product.
Guaranteed rent is not a promise. It is a signature.
Watch the distinction, because the phrase circulates loosely. Guaranteed rent can only exist where somebody leases your apartment themselves. If it is offered by a company that will merely manage the property on your behalf, that is not a guarantee. It is an estimate wearing a better name.
Who takes on what
From handover, running the apartment stops being your concern. You do not see bookings, answer messages, coordinate cleaners, or take a call because a washing machine died on a Sunday night.
- Tenant’s side: utilities, cleaning, linen, repairs arising from normal use.
- Tenant’s side: registry entry and the obligations that come with subletting.
- Owner’s side: property tax and everything attaching to ownership.
- Owner’s side: structural faults and serious building issues.
- Owner’s side: tax on the rent received.
The condition in which the apartment is handed over and returned is recorded at the outset, with a schedule and photographs. That is where arrangements of this kind usually generate disputes, so we would rather have it written before the keys change hands than argued at the end.
What you give up
It would not be honest to present leasing without its cost, because there is one and it is real. You give up the good year. When Athens has an exceptional season, an apartment in a strong area under management will out-earn a fixed rent. That difference is kept by the tenant, in exchange for carrying the bad year.
Leasing is not cheaper or dearer than management. It is a trade: you sell the upside and buy the floor.
You also give up casual access. The apartment is let, so you do not take it back for a fortnight in August because it suited you. If that matters, management is the better answer, and we set it out in detail in our piece on Airbnb management in Athens.
The tax position is simpler
Here leasing carries an advantage most owners have not costed. The rent you receive is income from immovable property, exactly as with any conventional tenancy. You are not counting properties, not approaching a threshold, not opening books.
The difference shows up once you own more than one. In short-term letting, from the third property onward the activity is treated as a business, with registration, 13% VAT across the whole activity, social security contributions and the trade fee. Under leasing that threshold does not arise, because all you are doing is letting.
One incentive that does not apply here
Greece currently offers a three-year exemption from income tax for owners who convert a property from short-term letting, or one that has stood empty for three years, into a long-term residential tenancy. It covers leases signed up to 31 December 2026, homes of up to 120 square metres with 20 more per dependent child, and it requires a three-year contract.
We mention it because you should know about it, not because it helps us: the exemption applies only to letting to a private individual as their home. A lease to a company, whether UPSTREET or anyone else, falls outside it. If your apartment qualifies and three tax-free years are worth more to you than what we would offer, then letting to a private tenant is the right move and we will say so plainly. The deadline is close, so it is worth putting the numbers side by side with your accountant before you decide.
When it fits
Leasing fits when the apartment services a mortgage or forms core income and predictability is worth more than margin. It fits when you live outside Athens, or outside Greece, and have no wish to monitor anything. It fits when the property sits in an area with steady rather than explosive demand, where management would not produce a large enough gap to justify the swing.
It does not fit if you want to capture a strong season, if you use the apartment yourself from time to time, or if you want to see the numbers monthly and have a hand in the decisions.
In practice the decision is rarely theoretical. It turns on the neighbourhood, the floor, the state of the apartment and what you need from it. Send us the address and a few photographs and we will tell you which of the two makes sense for your property, without trying to sell you the other.
Find out what your apartment could earn
Send us the details and we will come back with a proposal for both models.
