Foreign buyers of Turkish property are paving the way for the Real Estate recovery from Covid-19 as house sales grew by 16.2% year on year in May of this year. From a total of 59,166 residential properties that were sold in May, 1,776 of these were purchased by a foreign buyer which is an increase of 106.5%.
Cheap loans and a strong Lira contributed to the surge in buyers, and even with a rise in borrowing costs which resulted in a 42.9% decrease in mortgage sales, it was still a very strong performance in what has been a tough market over the last 12 months.
In the five month period of 2021 foreign buyers purchased 15,470 houses which was a 24.9% increase from 2020, and many sector representatives predict a steady rise for the rest of this year as restrictions and curfews are set to ease over the summer months. Home prices in Turkey are already favourable compared with other destinations and on top of holiday home purchases there’s also a marked increase in people buying for Investment & those buying for full time residence.
Istanbul received the most amount of sales, followed by Ankara, Izmir and Antalya, and buyers came from the likes of Iraq, Iran and Russia. One of the big countries missing from that list at the moment is of course the UK, but this will change as restrictions ease, and flights from the UK to Turkey resume.
Selman Ozgun who is the Chairperson of Helmann Yapi, one of Turkey’s largest construction firms, commented that ‘The Turkish Real Estate sector can clearly respond to the demands of foreigners both in the normal period and the demands that changed with the pandemic. We believe that foreigners housing demand will continue to increase in both city centres and the coastlines, and Sales will increase along with the summer months, so we could see sales figures of 5,000 units again on a monthly basis’.
Faruk Akbal who is the chairperson of the Real Estate International Promotion Association agreed with Ozgun, saying that by the end of 2021 they expect revenues of around $7bn from sales to foreign buyers.
