Turkey's property market in 2023: Russians are leading investors among foreign nationals

Following record demand set in 2022, each new complication in obtaining Turkey’s residence permit led to a drop in applications and transactions by Russians. Nevertheless, with 10,560 properties purchased in Turkey, they remained the top property buyers among foreign nationals in 2023.
They were followed by citizens of:
- Iran (4,272);
- Iraq (1,917);
- Ukraine (1,720);
- Kazakhstan (1,440).

The number of properties sold to foreigners fell by 48.1% to 35,005 compared to the previous year. In 2023, the share of property sales to foreigners accounted for 2.9% of all sales, compared to 4.5% in 2022.
The most popular cities for foreigners to buy property remained the same, but the priority changed. In 2023, Antalya ranked first, with 12,702 sales to foreigners. Istanbul was the second city (11,229), while Mersin (3,016) ranked third.

The year 2023 has been a difficult period for the country whose economy is now moving systematically towards a course correction. Key interest rate increase, earthquakes, restrictions on preferential loan programmes, tighter migration policies and many other factors led to a 17.5% year-on-year decline in property sales in 2023 to 225,926 properties.
Traditionally, the highest sales are recorded in the country’s major cities:
- Istanbul — 16.2% (198,739 properties);
- Ankara — 9.3% (114,432);
- Izmir — 5.3% (65,465).
At the same time, it is worth mentioning that the share of sales in new buildings remained at the level of the 2022 period and amounted to 31% of the total number of transactions in 2023.
Due to high inflation and the prohibition on the use of banking services by foreigners, mortgages are becoming less popular in Turkey, despite the increase in the amount of property investment required to obtain a residence permit (from 50 to 200 thousand US dollars).
The total number of properties sold with mortgages in 2023 reached 177,748 (14.5% of total sales), which is 36.6% less than last year.
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