Three students created a real estate digital Deal Room
Buying property in Greece from abroad can feel scattered: documents in one inbox, updates in another chat, and no clear view of where things stand. PlotX, a platform based in Argostoli, Kefalonia, was created to change that. At its heart is the Deal Room, a shared digital space where the buyer, the seller and the professionals involved keep every document and every step of a purchase in one place. Here one of the founders explains how the idea came about, how the platform works, and what foreign buyers should look out for.
By Panagis Travlos, Co-Founder, PlotX
PlotX was founded by three friends from Kefalonia who have known each other since we were four years old. Today we are all fourth-year students. I handle the development of the platform and the running of the business. Alexandros Vinieratos, who studies Business Administration, and Nikolaos Matrangos, who studies Medicine, take care of marketing and operations. It is an unusual mix for a real estate company, but it has worked for us: we trust each other completely, and we each see the problem from a different angle.
We started building the platform in February 2025. The idea did not come from a business plan. It came from my father’s family real estate business, where we grew up listening to how foreign buyers experience the Greek market. Through it we spoke with many people investing in Greece, most of them British, and they all described the same things: bureaucracy, lost time, delays, and a general sense of chaos until the purchase was finally completed.
What struck us was that the biggest problem was not the law, and it was not the costs. It was the lack of organisation. Nobody could see the whole process in one place. A buyer would deal with a lawyer by email, a notary by phone, an agent through Viber or WhatsApp, and an engineer through yet another channel. Documents and messages got lost, and a great deal of what was said was never recorded anywhere. The process dragged on, and when something got stuck, each party tended to blame the other. For a buyer living abroad it was worse still, because they often had no idea where their case stood and nobody they could simply ask. We started PlotX to make the process simple and transparent.
How a purchase works
On PlotX, buyers browse land and property, with more than 1,300 active listings at the moment, mainly in Kefalonia and Athens. When they are ready to buy, they complete the purchase through the Deal Room, so that they know at every moment where their case stands, even when living abroad.
Every purchase moves through clear stages: first contact, viewing, offer and negotiation, deposit, contract preparation, signing, payment and transfer. At any point the buyer can see which stage they have reached, which documents have been uploaded and which are still missing, and which professional has the next step. Notifications arrive with every change, and whatever is said or sent stays on record.
Almost everything happens online. The two exceptions are the viewing of the property and the signing of the contract, which take place in person. Even these can be adapted for someone who lives far away, because the viewing can be done by video call and the contract can be signed by the buyer’s lawyer under a power of attorney. In practice, a buyer’s physical presence can be limited to a single trip, or even to none at all.
Buyers also choose their own professionals. They can bring their own lawyer, notary and engineer, or pick from those on the platform. After each transaction, the buyer and the seller rate and review the professionals they worked with, so the ratings come from real cases rather than from marketing. And when a case is delayed, we do not leave the buyer to deal with it alone. We send the professional a reminder and follow up with them ourselves, so that the buyer does not have to chase everyone individually.
What it costs
We wanted the costs to be low and clear. Sellers list their property for free. The buyer pays a platform fee of 1%, which covers PlotX’s services: the Deal Room, and the organisation and monitoring of the case through to the transfer. Because it pays for services that have already been provided, the fee does not depend on the sale going through. If the purchase is cancelled because of the seller, the fee is refunded to the buyer. If it is cancelled because of the buyer, it is not.
The platform fee is not the only cost, of course, and buyers should budget for the rest. There is the transfer tax of 3.09%, and the fees of the notary, the lawyer and the engineer, as well as land registry charges. These vary depending on the property and the professional involved.
Making prices visible
Price transparency is the second thing we care about. In October we published the Kefalonia Land Price Index, and we will update it every quarter, so that anyone interested in land on the island can see an objective picture of asking prices by area.
The Index is built from the 878 plots of land listed on our platform in Kefalonia, of which 787 have both a price and a surface area. For each group of plots we calculate the median asking price per square metre, so that a handful of very expensive or very cheap plots cannot distort the picture. Across the island, the median asking price is €47 per square metre.
The most interesting finding is where the difference lies. Plots within a town plan or settlement ask €76 per square metre, while all other plots ask €30, roughly two and a half times less. Of the seven areas covered by the Index, the wider Argostoli area has the highest asking price within a town plan, at €89 per square metre. In other words, the biggest difference is not between one area and another, but between plots inside and outside a town plan.
It is worth remembering what these numbers are. An asking price is the starting point of a negotiation, not the final price. Once contract data becomes public by area, we plan to compare it with the Index. In the meantime, the Index helps a buyer see whether a given asking price is in line with others in the same area and category, which is a useful thing to know before making an offer.
Along the same lines, many people ask why the exact location of a property is hidden on the platform. The main reason is to protect the seller, so that strangers do not turn up at their home or land unannounced. Buyers can always see the area on the map, and they receive the exact location as soon as they get in touch.
Mistakes we see most often
Having watched many foreign buyers go through the process, we see three mistakes again and again. The first is buying land outside a town plan without checking whether it can actually be built on. Outside a town plan, you usually need a minimum of 4,000 square metres and frontage on a road before you are allowed to build. The second is buying without checking the forest maps. The third is buying a property with unauthorised construction that has not been regularised.
All three are avoidable, and this is one of the reasons the professionals are part of the process on PlotX from the start. The engineer and the lawyer check these points before any deposit is paid, and the documents are visible to the buyer in the Deal Room.
Open to everyone
We also wanted real estate to be open to everyone, not only to those who work in it professionally. That is why we created the role of the partner. Anyone can become one, with no special qualifications. A partner who brings a buyer, simply by sending the link to a property, receives a reward of 50% of PlotX’s platform fee, which is 0.5% of the sale price. A partner who brings a seller who lists their property receives 0.25% of the price once it is sold. The same applies to rentals.
People sometimes ask who pays for this, and the answer is that the reward comes out of PlotX’s own 1% platform fee. Neither the buyer nor the seller pays anything extra. The partner only brings the interested person to the platform by sending a link. The price, the documents and the process are the same for everyone, and buyers choose their own lawyer and engineer to check the property. This means the partner’s incentive cannot influence the checks carried out on the property.
Where we are going
Today our base is Kefalonia, and the largest category of listings there is land. But we have more than 1,300 listings in total, including houses, apartments, commercial properties and properties for renovation, both for sale and for rent. Over the coming months we are expanding mainly into Athens and the Ionian islands, with the aim of eventually covering areas across Greece through new partnerships with professionals in the field.
What makes us different comes down to four things: low and clear costs, with no charge to the seller and 1% to the buyer; the whole process in one digital place; transparency on prices; and the partner role, which gives anyone the chance to earn from real estate. Three friends started it, and we hope it will make buying property in Greece a little simpler for everyone who wants to do it.
Prefer a Traditional Real Estate Agent?
If you prefer working with a traditional real estate agent, make sure to verify their licensing to protect your investment and guarantee a safe transaction.
ABOUT THE EXPERT
Panagis Travlos, Co-founder of PlotX
Real estate platform: PlotX
Registration Number ELGEMI: 194231609000
+30 69 45 31 3115
info@plotx.gr
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