Best real estate projects awarded in Istanbul

Gülistan Alagöz - ISTANBUL

Turkey’s best real estate projects were awarded in Istanbul on Nov. 7.

Organized for the fifth year marking environmentally friendly and sustainable real estate projects, the Sign of the City Awards (SotCA) competition handed out awards to a total of 38 winners. A total of 33 projects received the Premium Award at the competition, which was launched by daily Hürriyet.

The jury, which was composed of 18 distinguished professionals and co-headed by Prof. Güzin Konuk and World Architecture Community Founder Prof. Suha Özkan, assessed 120 applications from 61 enterprises and organizations under 25 main headings and five categories.

Environment and Urbanization Minister Murat Kurum said the government took a series of crucial steps to resolve any problems of the sector, citing a recently-announced discount campaign.

“Through this campaign, we have enabled potential homebuyers to benefit from bank loans with a 0.98 percent interest rate and up to 120 monthly installments. This initiative has helped the sector enjoy key rises in sales,” he said in a speech at the ceremony.

He also noted that a total of 33 “nation gardens” were now being in 18 provinces across Turkey, adding that yet the most important topic in their agenda was to accelerate urban transformation projects.

“Almost 66 percent of the residential areas in Turkey are earthquake regions with almost 71 percent of the population living in first-degree and second-degree seismic zones. We will build horizontal residential or office buildings, which will not hit the urban silhouettes negatively in the upcoming period,” he added.

Demirören Media Chief Executive Officer Mehmet Soysal reminded that the construction sector had been taken under the incentive category of priority by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in 2017.

“In this vein, the sector has kept being a motor force in fueling the economic activities over this year,” he said, adding that many Turkish companies undertook in projects of big success overseas as well.