"Everyone comes in the summer and sees how beautiful it all looks – all the white and the shining windows," Stefanos who rents the motorscooters said pointing at the houses on the hills around the harbor. "But it takes a lot of work in the Winter and Spring. The ocean is very hard on the houses and we have to paint and clean and take care of them. So when you show up, it looks so beautiful. For us, it is hard work."
Emily and I were waiting at the dock for our friends Conlan and Sharon to arrive on the afternoon ferry on August 1, 2019. We told Stefanos we were considering buying a house here on Patmos and that was his advice.
I have come to understand some of what he means – the humidity from the ocean air causes houses need to be painted every two to three years and this year is my house's season. Mohammad plans to whitewash the house in the Spring.
Today, on the beautiful sunny day between rain storms, Michelle and I took a ride around the southern portion of the island – just to see Patmos in its green-coated splendor. Aside from amazing vistas, sparking water and quiet there were a surprising number of concrete drum mixers at various properties – especially up in Hora. More than that, some properties had stacks of bricks, uninstalled solar panels, piles of rebar and even inactive small backhoes. A few were actively being worked on today.
In a few places, there were houses being built or added onto – and in others construction projects that have sat partially built and abandoned for years. In the areas below the backside of the monastery, the hills have scattered new, large beautiful homes – most of which appear to be without their summertime inhabitants. In other places – especially near Grikos Beach – there are blocks of summertime vacation studios/rooms that have been left empty and inactive for years – the paint wearing away, the underlying concrete browning.
The areas around Grikos, Petra and the areas south of Hora have seen the most new home construction during the past five years. Grikos also has a lot of abandoned holiday studios, small hotels and construction projects abandoned. I don't know all the reasons why, but I understand it was an area where property was more recently made available for purchase and development. The beach is also smaller than many and certainly not my favorite. Nicholas told us years ago it's where the treated waste water is released and not to swim there.
What seems clear looking around the island is that hotels and holiday studios are out and new, fancy houses are in. In fact, I can count three sizable hotels around the island and at least three holiday apartment buildings in Grikos with "For Sale" signs. Meanwhile construction on houses with views seems to be ongoing. I guess some are summer homes for specific owners while others are investment for renting. Of course it's always possible to hybrid these by enjoying one's vacation home for a few weeks and Airbnb'ing the rest of the Summer.
My friend George who owns Oceanoc properties has built an entire business from managing luxurious vacation homes with great views and/or beach access. I once asked him who is showing up able to pay the prices he charges. George told me it's mostly groups of people – frequently younger and Italian – in which a group of maybe three to five couples share the house for a week or two. Individually, none of them could ever afford it but together they can have the vacation experience of their dreams.
In tourist economies, I've found it common that when a new idea works, people copy it. When I first went to Bali, there was no such thing as gelato. Last time I was in Ubud, gelato lined the streets. The first time I went to Ko Samet in Thailand, there were a couple of guys who twirled fire on the beach and people all gathered to watch them. It was the only Thai island on which I saw this. Now every Thai island has multiple bands of fire twirlers moving up and down the beaches, performing at each restaurant and hotel – because people really do gather and pay attention to spinning fire.
The risky part of developing a tourist economy is the real estate investment. You bring on or let go fire twirlers anytime (for some reason fire twirlers are a dime a dozen…) but building a property people will want to book over the course of many years is a big commitment. Patmians have leaned in hard to their tourism economy. Without tourism, there isn't much beyond modest agriculture, fishing and tile making. Patmos likely wouldn't be able to support even its 3,000 inhabitants or they would just be very poor and subsist heavily on their own food production – which is probably much how it used to be.
Luckily, Patmos is a beautiful island and while it (thankfully) doesn't have the visitor flow of Santorini and Mykonos, it attracts a loyal following that has become increasingly upscale in recent years. Accordingly a large number of Patmians have to figure out how to most effective capture those tourist euros and in many cases, make their entire year's living in just five months.
Clearly Airbnb and its imitators have disrupted the hospitality industry. Visitors – particularly many of the long-termer Patmos gets – have an increasing taste for a nice home and less for a hotel room or even a spartan holiday studio. I'm a great case in point. While I've never rented a luxury home for thousands of euros a night, my family spent the summer of 2019 Airbnb'ing a three bedroom apartment in the Kastelli neighborhood and now I own a home I've spent two years renovating. Last September, I Airbnb'd it to a nice family from France. Patmos is a lot nicer with a rainfall shower, a large sectional sofa and a washer and dryer. And a dishwasher. I worked hard for that dishwasher.
Airbnb suddenly gave every Patmian the opportunity to cash-in on lodging revenue. Renting out one's home or second unit in their duplex (man families build duplexes and triplexes to create multigenerational use of property) means 200 euros or more a night in peak season revenue even for a very blah property. Airbnb has been the great equalizer – which of course hurt the owners of the island's not very luxurious small hotels tremendously. Keeping those businesses vital would require a lot of imagination and investment which based on the For Sale signs, I'm guessing many of them didn't have.
If even a modestly appointed home can command good money and people like George can make hundreds of thousands per summer across his portfolio of dazzling properties, it makes sense Patmians and outside investors might invest in property to build luxury homes with sweeping views instead of traditional lodging.
Riding around the island, I sometimes wonder if their gamble will pan out. Even from the cafe in which I'm sitting, I can look up at the hills and see two partially constructed, abandoned projects. It seems people frequently enough underestimate these building projects – whether it's getting the permit approval or just the cost and difficulty of the construction. I've seen a number of such properties listed for sale with listings trying to present the a fantastic opportunity to buy property at empty-lot prices but with partial construction that just needs completing.
More than that, I wonder at what point large luxury homes saturate the market? How many can be kept booked all summer? They seem more subject to economic fluctuation than other properties on an island already so vulnerable to tourism trends. There are people whose businesses didn't survive 2020 and 2021 and others still recovering. Dimitris who rents cars always mentions the pressure of making his family's living in a condensed five-month window. The quiet underlying implication is also how that living comes by the grace of God, because if Patmos becomes less popular or people can't afford their vacations – Dimitris is in a tight spot. Even a malfunctioning car pulled out of service has a serious impact which is why he maintains his vehicles meticulously – that and he's a little OCD.
Naturally, not everyone's livelihood is as precarious as Dimitris or George's. Manos the attorney had work in 2020 and 2021 all the same. Still, on a long enough timeline the dominos fall and if businesses start folding and Patmians have to leave, who will Manos have for clients?
To me, luxury homes also seem less flexible an investment. Holy apartments and hotels can more easily be turned into residential housing or remodeled into luxury suites. A multi-unit operator can also lower their rates and get by on volume if they reach target occupancy. A house is an all-or-nothing proposition. Particularly on Patmos, it's unlikely a large, luxury home with a sweeping view on a remote hillside or road will ever attract a year-round resident. What's magical in the summer can be impractical to undesirable in the Winter.
Or maybe and hopefully not.
Sometimes times change and trends along with them. Perhaps stunning luxury homes on Patmos are the path to long-term success while hotels and holiday studios are the horse and buggy of our time?
I don't know, although I suspect there may yet be good uses for the hotels up for sale – just not in the way they were originally imagined.
Of course if the Airbnb trend continues, Sennen may well be a beneficiary. This past summer he told me, "Daddy, we need to do really well with Airbnb'ing our house so then we can use the money to buy another house on Patmos and then another – and we'll have a whole Patmos empire!"
He knows how to play the game.
