Finding a home in an airbnb-dominated market

Once we've decided to move to Greece 6 months ago, we started obviously to think about where to live. Having lived all my life in cities, particularly during the recent five years with small children, I was ready for trying out rural village life. This would allow us to let the children move around more freely, get independently to school, meet friends and us potentially even using the bicycle, and having some space for our own.

While we have quite some respect for this new expected surrounding and rhythm of life, we have never imagined that it would be so hard to find a rental apartment or house in the village we've selected. In the 5 months preparing our move, my husband connected with all possible family members, friends and local online groups to find out about potential options. But there wasn't hardly anything available. The owners of the two options we've found informed us after initial discussions that they preferred renting their place out in summer to tourists, through airbnb.

With our budget we couldn't afford those prices that airbnb would get to the owners in touristic summer months, so we concluded these initial discussions without any results (For those interested into the recent airbnb developments in Greece, have a look at this article: https://eteron.org/en/to-airbnb-kai-to-mellon-tis-stegasis-stin-ellada/ ). Our hope was to directly meet the owners once we arrived in Kefalonia, and to see the places firsthand to ease the process. It was the biggest unknown factor so far in our adventure.

Luckily we found now a place that we can call home for the next three years. It's big enough for the four of us, with a guest/office room and a garden for some new cats. It's next to the Kindergarden where our children will go one after the other, in the village we chose because of its active social life throughout the year. How did we do it? Vitamin B, as we say in German - connections helped us in finding a man with Kefalonian family roots and living in the UK, with a relatively big summer house in Kefalonia that he rarely uses. He didn't have big profit plans with the house and trusted us based on the connection. He has actually never thought about renting it out.

While the house is big enough and has everything we wanted (except A/Cs and heating), we are now in the process of putting all the stuff of the owner in boxes, and into the outsized garage on the ground floor. This is somewhat strange, to put all the personal belongings of a complete stranger into order, even though there is not a lot and in good shape. I almost feel a bit like an intruder. But a happy one! :-)