Supply problems, strong demand push up rents

ISTANBUL

Rents have been rocketing in Türkiye’s largest cities over the past year due to insufficient house supplies and strong demand.

Landlords’ price gauging is also another factor contributing to the exorbitant rents, particularly in Istanbul, Ankara, İzmir, holiday destination Antalya and the northwestern industrial province of Bursa.

Experts say that demand from foreigners is pushing up rents as well but that the pace of increase in rents are slowing.

Earlier this the government introduced a cap to limit rent hikes to 25 percent for a period of one year, however, most landlords ignore the law, asking much higher increases from tenants.

Rents in Istanbul, Türkiye’s commercial and financial capital, rose 144 percent in the past year to 10,229 Turkish Liras ($550) on average, while the increase in Ankara was 163 percent to 5,466 liras on average, according to data compiled by In İzmir, the average rent price climbed to 6,932 liras, up 154 percent over the same period.

In Antalya, where demand for properties has been strong since the start of the war in Ukraine, rents leaped 213 percent to 10,200 liras on average.

Large number of Ukrainians and Russians, who flee their countries, have arrived in the popular resort city on the Mediterranean cost, pushing up rents in the city.

Meanwhile, the Turkish Statistical Institute (TÜİK) said on Nov. 16 that house sales in Türkiye declined by 25.3 percent in October from the same month of 2021 to 102,660 units.

That came on top of the 22.9 percent year-on-year decline in houses sales in September.

Mortgage-financed sales dropped nearly 53 percent to 13,300 last month on an annual basis.

Most of the house sales took place in Istanbul, where nearly 17,000 residential properties changed hands in October, followed by Ankara at 8,200 and İzmir at 6,300.

In the first ten months of 2022, a total of 1.16 million houses were sold in Türkiye, marking a 6.7 percent increase from January-October last year.

TÜİK also reported that foreign nationals bought around 5,400 houses in the country, down 8.8 percent from a year ago.

Russians were at the top of the homebuyers list. They bought 2,023 properties last month. Iranians and Iraqis came second and third at 498 and 310, respectively.

Some 220 houses were sold to Ukrainians, and German nationals bought another 211 houses in Türkiye in October.

Antalya was the most popular city with foreign homebuyers, who bought 2,100 properties there. In Istanbul, foreign nationals purchased around 1,700 houses, while the southern province of Mersin ranked third at 490.

House sales to foreigners in the first ten months of 2022 grew 27 percent year-on-year to 55,021 units.