The house sales increased by 15 percent in February compared to previous year, according to the data announced by The Turkish Statistical Institute on Friday.

Out of 95,021 houses sold throughout Turkey, 17,690 houses sold in Istanbul represented the highest share of any city in Turkey with 18.6 percent of all house sales. It was followed by Ankara with 11,063 houses sold, representing a 11.6 percent share, and Izmir with 5,850 houses sold representing a 6.2 percent share. Hakkari and Ardahan stood at the bottom of the list with six house sales.

Mortgaged sales increased by 53.6 percent compared to previous year and made up 38.9 percent of all house sales and 36,952 houses were sold with a mortgage. 1,639 houses were sold to foreigners with Istanbul topping the list of foreign brought homes with 466 sales, followed by Antalya's 356, Bursa's 106 and Yalova's 77 sales.