Total home sales in Türkiye were slightly down in the first month of 2026, official data showed on Thursday, reversing the recent trend of strong demand in the property market despite higher borrowing costs in the country.
A total of 111,480 houses were sold in Türkiye in January, marking a 4.7% decrease from the same month last year, the Turkish Statistical Institute (TurkStat) data revealed. In January 2025, the country recorded 117,025 housing sales.
This comes after a record year for the property market with close to 1.7 million sales last year, more than 14% compared to a year earlier.
The renewed version of the housing report, shared once a month by the statistics office, also included commercial property sales for the first time.
The report also, instead of focusing on cumulative housing unit sales, displayed in detail sales separated into new and second-hand house sales, as well as commercial sales.
New home sales in the country dropped 2.1% year-over-year to 34,069 units in January, while second-hand sales decreased 5.9% over the same period to 77,411 units, TurkStat said.
New sales accounted for 30.6%, while second-hand house sales accounted for 69.4% of total house sales, the report said.
Mortgage-financed sales surged 15.7% from a year earlier, totaling 20,263 homes and accounting for 18.2% of all transactions.
Sales to foreign buyers, however, declined 20.8% to 1,306 units. Russians, Iranians, and Ukrainians made up the largest share of foreign purchasers.
At the same time, the data revealed that new commercial property sales decreased by 9.2% in January compared to the same month of the previous year to 3,444 units. Second-hand commercial property sales were down by 14.5% yearly to 9,823 units, TurkStat said.
The Turkish central bank cut the key interest rate by 100 basis points to 37% in January, continuing an easing cycle, albeit at a slower pace in the face of a stronger uptick in monthly prices.
The data shared by the bank earlier this week showed that the Residential Property Price Index (RPPI), which measures quality-adjusted price changes in the sector, posted a monthly increase of 3.7%.
The RPPI increased annually by 27.7% in nominal terms and decreased by 2.3% in real terms, the Central Bank of the Republic of Türkiye (CBRT) said.
According to the data, the highest annual increase in January was observed in eastern provinces like Bingöl, Elazığ, and Malatya at 34.2%, while the lowest annual rise was observed in western provinces of Edirne, Kırklareli and Tekirdağ at 18.2%.
