What No One Tells Women About Finding a Flat in Athens

I am Greek. Athens is not where I grew up, but I have been visiting for years, watching it change, and spending enough time here to understand how it works.

The neighbourhoods, the unwritten rules, which landlord/landlady to trust and which one to run from.

And even with all of that, I found the rental market hard to navigate.

So if you are a woman arriving in Athens from abroad, from London, Berlin, Amsterdam, New York, without a local network, without family who can vouch for you, without someone who knows someone who knows the landlady, I want you to know: it is not just you. The system was not built with you in mind.

Here is what the relocation guides leave out.

Most listings don't tell you who you're actually dealing with On the big platforms, Spitogatos, XE, Facebook groups, you see a photo of a room, a price, a neighbourhood. What you don't see is who posted it, whether they are a real landperson or a scammer, whether the price is the actual price or just the opening of a negotiation you don't know the rules of.

Women I have spoken to have turned up to viewings alone, in an unfamiliar neighbourhood, to meet a stranger. Some were fine. Some weren't.

The absence of verified identity on either side of a rental transaction is not a small problem. It is the problem.

"Affordable" neighbourhoods come with context no one gives you Athens is more affordable than London, yes. But affordable does not mean safe, and safe looks different depending on the time of day, whether you are walking alone, and whether you know the area.

The rental process runs on who you know

In Greece, trust is relational. A landperson is far more likely to rent to someone recommended by a person they already know than to a stranger with a good credit score. This is not corruption, it is culture. But it means that if you arrive without a network, you are starting at a disadvantage that no amount of preparation fully compensates for.

This is especially true for the shorter-term or furnished rentals that most women relocating to Athens actually need.

The roommate scene is almost entirely unregulated

If you are not ready to rent alone, which most people arriving in a new city are not, you will look for roommates. And the roommate scene in Athens runs almost entirely on word of mouth, Facebook groups, and luck!!

There is no standard vetting process. No way to know if the woman posting the room is who she says she is. No mechanism for checking compatibility before you hand over a deposit and move your life in.

I have heard stories of women arriving to find the room was nothing like described, the living situation untenable within weeks. These are not edge cases. They are what happens when the infrastructure is missing.

Safety infrastructure for women in housing barely exists

If something goes wrong, a landperson who won't return a deposit, a roommate situation that turns unsafe, a viewing that felt threatening, there is very little formal recourse. Knowing your rights under Greek tenancy law is important, and most women arriving from abroad don't.

This is one of the reasons I built RooMate with safety as the foundation, not an afterthought. Trust Match™ verified profiles. Consent-based introductions, both sides say yes before any contact details are shared. A safety checklist built into every listing. Support contacts visible throughout the platform.

Not because Athens is dangerous. But because women deserve a housing search that takes their safety seriously from the very first step.

What I would tell any woman moving to Athens

Talk to women who already live there before you arrive. Join communities, XpatAthens is a good starting point. Don't commit to anything before you have seen it in person. Give yourself two to four weeks in a short-term rental first, so you can find your footing without pressure.

And if you are looking for a flatmate or a room through a verified, women-first platform, that is exactly what RooMate was built for.

theroomateapp.com

Dr Sotiria Moschopoulou is a Greek dentist based in London and the founder of RooMate, a trust-based flatmate matching platform for women in Athens, operating as a single-sex service under Schedule 3, Part 7 of the Equality Act 2010.