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According to the statistical authority in Turkey, house sales reached almost 1.35 million in 2019. Foreign buyers were responsible for 45,500 house sales equating to an increase of 14.7% when compared to the year before. Almost 512,000 of the houses were sold for the first time with the remainder from January to December being second-hand sales.
Foreign Turkish property sales
2019 saw foreign buyers purchase 20,857 homes in Istanbul, this was followed by the Mediterranean resort Antalya where 8,951 sales were made to foreign buyers. The capital Ankara saw 2,539 homes sold to foreigners and the north western area of Bursa enjoyed house sales of 2,213 to foreign buyers.
Citizens of Iraq purchased 7,596 Turkish properties to head up the nationalities buying property. Iranians, Saudi Arabians, Russians, and Afghans made up the top five countries that purchased property in Turkey.
December 2019 saw foreign house purchases reach 5,300, which was an increase of 16.2% when compared with the year before. Iraqi nationals purchased almost 900 of these homes, 362 properties were sold to Russians, and 76 house sales were made to Iranian nationals.
Property locations
Istanbul, the largest city by population in Turkey was not just the top destination for foreign visitors it was also top with the total number of homes purchased. Real estate purchases in Istanbul totalled 237,675, which made up 17.6% of the overall sales in Turkey last year.
Official data released also showed that the Aegean province Izmir and the capital Ankara were responsible for 79,221 and 132,486 house sales respectively. These sales made up 5.9% and 9.8% of the overall purchases in Turkey for 2019.
Interest rates in Turkey
There were 332,508 houses purchased with a mortgage, which equated to a 24.7% share of sales. House sales rose by a massive 47.7% in December 2019 which totalled 202,000 properties. 75,480 of the properties sold were new with the other 136,520 previously owned properties.
The Deputy Head of the Contractors Association of Istanbul’s Anatolian Site, said: “Housing sales topped the 100,000 mark in recent months and exceeded the 200,000-mark last December for the first time.” He went onto say that the positive boost in sales is largely down to the low interest rates currently available for housing loans as well as deposits.
In 2019 there were eight meetings to discuss monetary policy, and as a result the Central Bank in Turkey lowered the rate of interest from 24% to 12% over a certain timescale.
The Deputy Head explained the plan for the construction sector in 2020 is to focus on urban transformation projects, which will see them building houses with a worth of one million Turkish Lira. He stated that: “We can sell 1.2 – 1.3 million housing units in 2020 again, we target to sell 60,000 units to foreigners in 2020.”
