Official data recently released by the Turkish Statistical Institute show that property sales in Turkey are booming, especially amongst foreign buyers who were accountable for a 47% year on year increase in the first eight months of this year, which equates to over 30,000 homes sold to foreigners between January and August 2021.
Analysing the stats, it will come as no surprise that figures were stronger for June, July and August when restrictions were lifted, and that May had produced the lowest numbers with only 1776 units sold throughout the month.
Istanbul, Antalya and Ankara had the most buyers with over 22,000 sales recorded in these three areas alone, and it turns out that Iraqi citizens bought the most properties, followed by Iranians, Russians, Afghans and Germans.
Omer Akbal who is the Chairperson of the Real Estate International Promotion Association was delighted with the figures, especially considering that there was an ever-growing interest of buyers from the USA, who have not only now entered the ‘Top Ten’ but also that there was an increase of buyers from 58 last year to 173 this year. He recently commented that ‘This shows how attractive the Turkish market has become in international real estate in terms of climate, health and tourism’.
The pandemic did have a toll on the market though as overall figures suggest there was a 21.7% decline in the number of total units sold when compared to pre-pandemic levels, due to high borrowing costs and lower mortgage sales, which dropped by around 64%. Overall, between January and August there were 801,995 units sold.
Nazmi Durbakayim is the head of the Istanbul Constructors Association and he expects there to be around 15,000 more houses to be sold this season, thus surpassing their peak of 45,483 units achieved in 2019, and surpassing their aim of 50,000 units sold to foreigners in 2021.
Brits have also been quite key in the foreign numbers, but haven’t really managed to make their mark this year due to the restrictions, however, since those have now been lifted and Turkey is off the red list things are changing, and there are more British starting to fly out. However, there probably won’t be a huge improvement on this until 2022, as it’s coming close to the end of the season.
