Annual increase in home prices continues to slow

ISTANBUL

The pace of annual growth in residential property prices has continued to slow, data from the Central Bank have shown.

The residential property prices index rose by 95.9 percent in June from a year ago, easing from the 104 percent annual increase recorded in the previous month.

The index advanced 4.8 percent in June from a month ago, after increasing 3.6 percent month-on-month in May.

In real terms, residential property prices rose by 30.8 percent in June compared with the same month last year, the Central Bank said on Aug. 16.

In Istanbul, the country’s financial and commercial capital, property prices climbed 85.1 percent, while the annual rate of increase in Ankara was 106 percent.

The unit price of residential property in Istanbul was 24,599 Turkish Liras ($909) per square meter. It was 37,220 liras in Ankara.

In İzmir, Türkiye’s third largest city by population, prices leaped 100 percent.

The index for new dwellings was up 95.8 percent in Istanbul while rising 90 percent in the capital.

Home sales last month reversed a five-month-long decline and increased by 16.7 percent compared with July 2022.

Some 109,548 homes changed hands in July, up from around 84,000 residential properties sold in June.

Mortgaged sales, however, fell 24.1 percent from July 2022 to 19,146, making up a little more than 13 percent of all sales.

People from the housing industry linked the decline in mortgaged sales to problems regarding consumers’ access to loans.

From January to July, home sales were down 17.7 percent from a year earlier to 675,327, with mortgaged sales shrinking 28.2 percent to 136,000.