Real estate sales in Turkey on the rise again

Real estate in Turkey has always attracted major foreign interest thanks to Turkey’s stunning location, Turkish citizenship by investment incentives, and promotional campaigns offered. Foreign investment interest has now started to bounce back alongside the country’s normalisation process following the COVID-19 outbreak, a sector official has said.

An expert in the tourism, real estate, and health exports industries in Turkey, said that they are: “working to find investments into the real estate sector from abroad in a bid to attract foreign buyers”.

Property sales in Turkey

The expert added that those with particular interest in buying real estate in Turkey were Middle Eastern buyers. Important items are also being exported to those countries include agricultural machinery and automobile subindustry materials.

It was explained that there had been a dramatic increase in foreign interest in Turkey’s real estate market and that sales to foreigners of residential units was up by 14.7% in 2019 when compared with 2018, reaching a total of 45,483 units for the year.

Some of the things that attracts buyers from Middle Eastern and Arab countries include the quality of life in Turkey, as well as the cultural similarities, historical and touristic features, climate, and transportation facilities. While explaining, the expert stressed that the opportunities and incentives that were offered by Turkey also contributed significantly to the interest shown.

Turkish Citizenship by Investment

One factor that had contributed to the increasing trend of housing sales in Turkey before the pandemic is that legislative amendments were made in order to ease the limits of investments by foreigners who were seeking Turkish citizenship. Another factor that could contribute is the campaigns made by the banks and real estate developers to offer advantageous plans.

The expert continued to say that due to the travel restrictions of COVID-19, housing sales had decreased from pre-pandemic highs as buyers were unable to get into the country to view and buy the properties.

However, due to the normalisation process that had begun, and with there now being flights into the country, the expert was pleased to announce a revived interest from foreign buyers in the Turkish property market, saying: “We think that mobility in the sector will begin in September, and we can return to monthly sales of 6,000 units in the spring of 2021”, he noted.

Continued interest in Turkey

He finished by saying that although foreign buyers had been unable to enter the country during quarantine, they had continued to contact the real estate developers via phone, social media and email, showing a maintained interest in properties in Turkey.