Turkey: prices on fire amid legal freeze

House prices in Turkey have risen after the suspension of property sales to foreigners…

A recent Constitutional Court decision to cancel a law governing the sale of property to foreigners has forced real estate agents to significantly drop prices and to shift their target market to Turkish customers.

Real estate agents are now seeking to sell finished residences to locals at relatively more reasonable prices. As such, it appears that the crisis generated by the court may well be transformed into an opportunity to help local people acquire homes of their own.

Fethiye Realtors Association President Nevzat Tilkici argued: “The court's decision plays into the hands of rival countries in the real estate sector. The foreigners in our country had already started gravitating toward Cyprus, Greece, Bulgaria, Romania and Croatia owing to the uncertainty in the political arena.

“Now it will be really difficult to convince them to believe that a new law will be passed or a new regulation will be made [regarding property sales to foreigners].

Alanya set to suffer the most?

Hüseyin Erkek, deputy president of the Alanya Chamber of Commerce and Industry (ALTSO) added: “69 percent of the immovable assets sold to foreigners in Antalya are in the Alanya district.

“There are 17,850 foreigners who own property in Alanya, and Alanya accounts for 24.4 percent of all the property sales to foreigners in Turkey”.

Antalya boasts the highest number of immovable assets sold to foreigners with 19,480.  Antalya is followed by Muğla with 9,345 and İstanbul with 8,187; they are followed by Aydın, Bursa and İzmir.

Even though Muğla comes second with regard to the number of immovable assets sold to foreigners, it is first in terms of the surface area covered by the assets, which is a total of 4,466,782 square meters.