by FSBO 
If you’re looking to sell property in Turkey for cash, you’d be pleased to know that things have been looking up in Turkey in recent years, in sharp contrast to the pessimism that engulfed the country for the past year or so.
In 2017 there was a huge change in Turkey’s political system. Tayyeb Erdogan was appointed as the President of Turkey until 2027 through a referendum. This gives him complete power over Turkey but has also made many foreign investors wary about investing in that country.
Indeed, most people had dismissed Turkey as an authoritarian regime and predicted bad things to happen to the country’s flourishing real estate market. But things have changed a lot since then.
Towards the end of 2017, Turkey’s economy rebounded sharply. In the fourth quarter of the year, Turkey registered an economic growth rate of 11 percent, the fastest in the world, faster than both India and China.
That was stunning. Tourism had to play a big role in this. The number of tourist arrivals in Turkey rose by a record 30 percent during this period. Turkey’s citizenship program for foreign investors who invested at least $1 million in properties in Turkey was also very popular with rich, high net worth individuals from war-torn regions in the Middle East.
Indeed, property sales have been so solid that sales to foreign nationals were up by 70% in March 2018 on a year-to-year basis.
Of the 122,882 homes sold in Turkey, 2,677 properties were sold to foreign buyers. Istanbul is where most of the home sales have been happening. Antalya and Bursa have done pretty well as well.
So who is buying in Turkey?
Most foreign nationals who buy in Turkey are from the Middle East – people from Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iraq, and Azerbaijan. Russians are buying too.
One can understand why high net worth individuals from the Middle East are buying properties in Turkey. The United States has a very strict immigration policy these days under President Trump and this is biased against people from the Middle East.
Any property investment made by an Arab or even by a Russian in the U.SA. these days is closely examined by law enforcement agencies. There is a strong environment of suspicion.
Because of this, many Arab investors have been looking for other, more friendly alternatives. There is none that is better or friendlier than Turkey for them. This is one of the reasons why Turkey’s property market has picked up so fast after a slight downturn in 2016-2017.
Another reason is that because of the unrest in the Middle East, a lot of people want to look for safer and more peaceful alternatives, where they can raise a family.
Turkey is a stable country, regardless of its authoritarian politics.
It is certainly more stable than Iran and Saudi Arabia, where the situation has become very uncertain in recent years because of public protests (Iran) and royal coups (Saudi Arabia).
That’s why we expect things to only get better for the Turkey property market this year.
