Turkey’s property sales down sharply in March, foreign demand up

ANKARA

House sales sharply decreased across Turkey in March, with mortgaged property sales seeing almost 35 percent year-on-year decrease, official data has shown.

Property sales to foreigners continued to rise as a total of 1,827 units were sold to foreign nationals in March with a nearly 16 percent yearly increase, data from the Turkish Statistics Institute (TÜİK) showed on April 20.

In Turkey, a total of 110,905 properties were sold in March with a 14 percent decrease compared to the same month of the previous year, according to TÜİK.

Istanbul again had the highest share of house sales with 16.9 percent and 18,714 units, followed by Ankara with 11,269 units and the Aegean province of İzmir with 6,787 units.

In March, the ownership of 32,786 houses changed by mortgage sales with a significant year-on-year decline.

House sales with mortgage had a 29.6 percent share of all house sales in Turkey, according to TÜİK.

TÜİK data also showed that Iraqis again became the top foreign buyer group in March as they bought some 348 units. They were followed by Saudi Arabians with 181 units, Iranians with 156 units, Russians with 120 units and Afghans with 108 units.

Istanbul again became the top destination for foreign house buyers with 556 units. Turkey’s largest city by population was followed by the Mediterranean province of Antalya with 446 units and the Black Sea province of Trabzon with 134 units.