After World War II, Greece faced a dilemma: people needed homes, but the state was broke, banks were stingy, and most families owned nothing but a small plot of land with a single-story house and maybe a lemon tree in the yard. Enter the brilliant, absurdly Greek invention known as antiparochi, literally “exchange in return.”
Here’s how it worked: the landowner handed his plot to a developer (ergolavo). The developer built a shiny new apartment building. In exchange, the landowner received a couple of flats “instead of payment.” No cash ever changed hands. Just keys. The developer then sold the remaining apartments to cover costs and make a profit.
Unlike the U.S., where a “contractor” usually means a licensed, insured professional with contracts, permits, safety helmets, and maybe even a lawyer on retainer, the Greek ergolavos is a hybrid creature: part builder, part negotiator, part magician, part family friend.
He doesn’t just build, he arranges. He knows which cousin can provide the cement, which neighbor will lend the scaffolding, and which municipal office can be “convinced” to look the other way until the balcony is already finished. He’ll quote you a price with one hand, while with the other he’s already calculating how many square meters he’ll take in antiparochi for himself.
The developer (ergolavos) doesn’t live in blueprints. He lives in oral agreements, nods, winks, and “don’t worry” (“min anisixis” ). You may ask for three floors, he may decide to give you four. Or two and a half. And somehow, when the dust settles, he owns half the building.
In Greece, you don’t hire an ergolavos. You enter into a relationship with him. One that will last longer than some marriages.
The result? Athens, Thessaloniki, Patras, Larissa every city suddenly sprouted concrete apartment blocks like mushrooms after rain. Families who once raised chickens in their yards now lived on the 4th floor with terrazzo floors, a bathroom water heater, and a balcony large enough to host gossip sessions with neighbors.
Antiparochi created the backbone of the Greek middle class. Those “free” apartments became dowries1, inheritances, or rental income. Many families went from poor to property-owning in a single deal with a contractor and a handshake.
Of course, being Greece, there was plenty of comedy in the process. Developers promised the moon: “Mrs. Maria, you’ll get the second floor with a view of the Acropolis.” In reality, the view turned out to be Mr. Nikos’ underwear drying on the balcony across the street. Negotiations sounded like a fruit market bargain: “I’ll give you the mezzanine and the penthouse, final offer!”
But there was a darker side too. In the rush for new apartments, Greece demolished much of its neoclassical heritage. Beautiful old houses vanished under bulldozers, replaced by gray slabs of concrete. Athens became the “city of polykatoikies”, a forest of balconies, laundry racks, and TV antennas.
Today, the word antiparochi carries a double meaning. For some, it’s nostalgia, the system that lifted families into modern life. For others, it’s regret, the trade of gardens and courtyards for endless cement. Either way, it’s pure Greece: practical, improvised, and just a little tragicomic.
