Greek Anarchists Target Airbnb and Real Estate Firms in Anti-Gentrification Campaign Across Athens
Executive Summary
A group of anarchists in Athens has claimed responsibility for a series of coordinated attacks on Airbnb properties, real estate offices, and student housing buildings operated by private firms. Framed as resistance to gentrification and privatization, the acts included vandalism, property damage, and anti-capitalist graffiti between June 1 and 13, 2025.
Analysis
On July 3, 2025, the anarchist site Act for Freedom Now! published a communiqué from an unnamed anarchist collective in Athens claiming responsibility for recent acts of vandalism targeting symbols of real estate commodification. These included multiple real estate agencies, short-term rental properties listed on Airbnb, and student housing facilities run by the private firm “My Flat.”
The group describes the attacks as a direct response to what they see as the systematic transformation of housing from a human necessity into an asset class exploited by both state-backed investors and transnational platforms. By linking tourism-driven gentrification with state-led redevelopment, the communique accuses both government policy and capitalist urban planning of displacing lower-income residents to make room for wealthier classes and international visitors.
Targets included
My Flat student housing sites in Daphne and Agios Ioannis
Real Estate Now agency in Kato Patisia
Dorothy’s Apartments, specializing in Airbnb rentals, in Kypseli
A luxury Airbnb complex known as “The Rooster’s Egg” in Kypseli
A property in Neapoli Exarchia alleged to have Israeli investment ties
Tactics used were relatively low-risk but symbolically potent: heavy tools for property damage, paint for defacement, and political slogans denouncing redevelopment and displacement. While no injuries were reported and the damage was largely non-structural, the message is clear—these locations were marked as enemies of the working class and urban poor.
The statement casts state-led redevelopment not as urban renewal but as displacement by design. Anarchists argue that housing has been recast as a speculative commodity under the guise of modernization, enforced through “hipsterization,” surveillance, and police presence. They view the privatization of student housing and the rise of luxury accommodations as twin aspects of the same strategy: converting Athens into a commercialized landscape hostile to its original inhabitants.
This is not the first wave of such actions in Athens. The city, particularly the Exarchia district, has long been a flashpoint for anti-gentrification, anti-capitalist, and anarchist organizing. What makes this action notable is the explicit targeting of digital-era real estate platforms—especially Airbnb—as well as the connection to foreign investment, reflecting the globalization of property markets and the radical left’s evolving response.
As Greece’s economy continues to attract international property speculation, and as tourism drives rapid redevelopment in core neighborhoods, the anarchist movement appears poised to escalate its opposition—shifting from protest to sabotage.
