Property sales in Turkey sharply down, foreign demand up in August

ANKARA

House sales across Turkey declined 12.5 percent on a yearly basis in August with a more than 67 percent yearly decrease in mortgaged sales, official data has shown.

Data from the Turkish Statistics Institute (TÜİK) also showed on Sept. 19 that a total of 3,866 properties were sold to foreigners with a 129.6 percent year-on-year increase.

According to TÜİK, a total of 105,154 properties were sold across Turkey in August — some 12,743 of them were mortgaged.

Property sales were increasing since June after they declined for the previous four months in a row, with the help of a discount campaign with a lower interest rate to revive the market ahead of the snap polls in June.

All of Turkey’s real estate developers have launched a new discount campaign late in August.

The campaign will take place between Aug. 29 and Oct. 31 and a 10 percent discount will be applied on all properties.

The advance payment for each property will not exceed 10 percent of the sale price and a 0.98 percent warrantless interest rate will be applied for a 120-month due, according to officials.

Sales to foreigners

According to TÜİK, Iraqis topped the list of foreign buyers with 944 properties, followed by Iranians (394), Saudis (275), Kuwaitis (271) and Russians (192).

Istanbul was again the top destination for foreign homebuyers with 1,141 units, followed by Antalya with 675 units, Bursa with 307 units and Ankara with 305 units.