Contraction in housing market continues in June, shows data

ANKARA

Türkiye’s housing market continued to contact with home sales declining 5.2 percent annually in June, official data has shown.

Only 79,313 homes changed hands last month, the Turkish Statistics Institute (TÜİK) said on July 17.

Since the start of 2024, home sales declined in all months but February when sales grew 17.3 percent year-on-year.

Istanbul took the lion's share from house sales in June with 13,025 units, the capital Ankara followed it with 6,866, and the Aegean city Izmir with 4,361.

Mortgaged house sales decreased by 49.4 percent in June to 6,813 units year-on-year in June, and mortgaged house sales had an 8.6 percent share of all house sales.

In the January-June period, mortgaged house sales decreased by 57.7 percent to 51,415 units.

In order to fight high inflation in the country, the country's Central Bank hiked interest rates from 8.5 percent to 50 percent during the last one year, causing strong declines in bank loans.

TÜİK data also showed that 1,440 houses were sold to foreigners, down 45.1 percent on a yearly basis in June.

The Mediterranean resort city of Antalya (593), Istanbul (478), and another Mediterranean city of Mersin (116) saw the highest number of house sales to foreigners.

"In June, the most house sales by country nationality were made to citizens of Russia with 332, Iran with 156, and Ukraine with 102," TÜİK said.

In the January-June period, house sales to foreigners decreased by 45.7% to 10,461 units.

House sales in Türkiye totaled 545,0974 in the January-June period, down 3.7 percent on a yearly basis.