Home sales down in March

ANKARA

Some 106,000 homes were sold in Türkiye in March, pointing to a 21.4 percent decline from a year ago, data from the Turkish Statistical Institute (TÜİK) have shown.

Mortgage-financed home sales were down 16.5 percent to 30,270 last month, accounting for 24 percent of all sales.

Istanbul, the country’s largest city by population, was once again the largest property market with home sales amounting to 18,200 units, followed by Ankara at an 11.4 percent share and İzmir at 5.8 percent.

TÜİK also reported that slightly over 3,400 houses were sold to foreigners, which corresponded to 3.2 percent of all sales in the country.

Antalya topped the list with 1,324 sales to foreign nationals, while international homebuyers purchased 1,090 properties in Istanbul last month. In the southern province of Mersin, 240 homes were sold to foreigners.

Russians constituted the largest group of buyers. They bought 1,175 homes in Türkiye, followed by Iranians at 472 and Iraqis at 165. Ukrainian citizens also purchased 160 homes in March.

From January to March, home sales to foreigners declined by 24 percent from the same period of 2022 to 10,926, TÜİK said.

Total home sales in Türkiye fell by 11.5 percent in the first quarter on an annual basis to 320,063 units. Mortgage-financed sales were down 13.9 percent to 68,342.