Unlicensed foreign realtors selling houses through social media

Salim Uzun -ANTALYA

Foreigners residing for a long time in the southern province of Antalya have started to work illegally as real estate agents to sell or rent properties with a 10 percent commission through social media groups amid the increasing demand of Ukrainians and Russians to reside in the city.

The fact that wealthy Ukrainians and Russians started looking for properties for rent or sale in Antalya as the target city to reside in has attracted the attention of resident foreigners who live and are accustomed to Antalya.

According to the Antalya Real Estate Brokers’ Association, the number of Russian and Ukrainian real estate agents working without a permit has exceeded the number of local realtors with proper official documents.

Forming closed groups in Russian and Ukrainian on many popular social media platforms, these foreigners share photos and price information of residences and workplaces in these groups.

Turkish users are not accepted into the closed groups as these people are doing real estate under the table.

Not to be exposed and lose their wealthy clients, these so-called real estate agents examine the people before including them in their groups.

Real estate agents in Antalya stated that the problem regarding people working illicitly as realtors has been there for many years.

In the past years, mostly Turkish citizens were doing real estate business without licenses, but they were limited to small-sum sales, according to some realtors in the city.

“The sale of properties to foreigners, which has been on an upward trend as seen in the past years, soared even more with the war migration, aggravating the problem further,” they stated.

“We are experiencing a grave problem due to Russian and Ukrainian realtors working illegally. They form closed groups on social media and act as realtors for their own citizens. They don’t have any permits, and they don’t pay taxes,” stated İsmail Çağlar, the head of the association.

“Moreover, they work with a commission of 10 percent, not 2 percent. These people use the media in their own countries for their advertisements. They also vilify Turkish real estate agents in these ads,” Çağlar explained.

Stating that they follow these groups on social media, Çağlar noted that though they interfere with sales in public groups, these closed groups constitute the main income of these unauthorized realtors.

“They have established a mysterious system within themselves. We complain, but the supervision is insufficient. They declared me a xenophobe just because I react to their work without permission. I am defending the right of tradesmen working with permission,” he said.