Land, tiny house sales surpass regular house sales for first time in Turkey

ISTANBUL

Due to the increasing property prices and a growing demand to live in nature amid the pandemic, the sale of “non-dwelling properties” has topped the sale of houses and apartments in 2021, causing a boom in the sales of tiny houses and breaking new grounds in the country.

According to official data released by the Turkish Statistical Institute (TÜİK), around 1.5 million “non-dwelling properties,” including lands, plots and warehouses, were sold in 2021, with a 30 percent increase compared to the previous year.

“The sales of some 722,000 plots of land were registered in 2021,” Demirören News Agency reported on Feb. 15, calling it a “record.”

The sales of plots also triggered the sales of tiny houses.

“After the pandemic, people started looking for accommodation alternatives,” Galip Ölmez, the head of Yako Groups, a tiny house company, told Demirören News Agency.

Buying a plot and locating a tiny house on it is the “new ecological life trend” in Turkey.

“People prefer tiny houses due to their low costs and because there is no need for construction licenses,” he said.

“In the road transport regulations, the tiny houses are registered as vehicles with plates or licensed caravans. This has helped the sales of tiny houses to skyrocket in a year,” he added.

Ölmez said they were good investments to make because “there is no need to establish an infrastructure of water, electricity or cesspit on a land people would locate a tiny house.”

Producing your own energy from solar panels on tiny houses, buying water tanks and opening deep cesspools are convenient solutions.

According to him, extended families with children that want to isolate themselves from other people due to the pandemic mostly prefer tiny houses.

Many firms across the country sell tiny houses with starting prices of 120,000 Turkish Liras ($8,830).

“We have different models of tiny houses between 10 square meters and 40 square meters,” Ölmez said.

Rather than an individual investment, many tourism investors have also started preferring tiny houses.

“Buying 10 tiny houses cost an investor one tenth of the cost of building a boutique hotel of 10 rooms,” he noted.
“There is a growing demand in the Aegean and the Mediterranean coasts,” he added.