Third airport fuels land, house prices

Meltem Kara ISTANBUL / Hürriyet

Following an official annoucement about the location of the a third Istanbul Airport, the house and land prices began increasing, say real estate firms. Hürriyet photo

Land and house prices in a northwestern Istanbul region that has been chosen as the future site of a third Istanbul airport are climbing sharply.

The airport will be constructed near Terkos Lake covering a large plot in the districts of Eyüp and Arnavutköy, but the exact location has not yet been revealed.

The growth in land speculation is also being fueled by a planned third bridge over the Bosphorus in northern Istanbul. Land prices in and around the region have risen three-fold in the last six months alone, and house prices are on the rise in areas with development permits.

According to data compiled from Reidin.com, a real estate information company, average house prices per square-meter in the northern portion of Eyüp hit 1,567 Turkish Liras, equaling a 16 percent year-on-year rise. The average price was 1,351 liras last year.

Three-fold increase

In Arnavutköy, the average house price per square meter increased 21.27 percent to 1,015 Turkish Liras compared with last year, while prices in neighboring villages hit 400 liras.

“Nobody lives in village houses the region. The prices are increasing because of their large plots, said Cengiz Akyüz, a local estate agent in Çatalca. “The price of a village house has increased three-fold depending on the size of their plots,” he also said.