Turkish real estate developers seem optimistic about reaching the year-end target despite the coronavirus pandemic and expect the house sales to hit 1.4 million units.

“At the end of the year, we expect sales of 1.4 million houses, despite all the negative developments, especially the pandemic,” said Akkuş Group Chairman of the Board Abdülkadir Akkuş.

Over 1 million residential properties were sold in Turkey between January and August, a 42.6% year-on-year increase, according to official data. August sales alone posted a 54.2% year-on-year rise to 170,408 units.

Sales displayed a strong performance at the beginning of 2020, however, were disrupted by the pandemic and the related lockdown measures the country implemented as of March. Ankara started lifting the measures as of May and lifted most of them in June.

Sales gained mobility with the normalization steps and particularly the cheap loan campaigns put forth by public lenders as of June.

Around 590,000 houses were sold in the June-August period alone, Akkuş told Anadolu Agency (AA).

Stressing the impact of the cheap loan campaigns, he emphasized that mortgaged sales surged by 263.7% in the first eight months to 473,144 units.

“Contractors have consumed most of the stock they had. Now, 2021 projects have started coming off the shelves,” Akkuş noted.

The fact that the interest rates on mortgages have again increased will affect the sales to some extent, he said, adding, however, it would not prevent sales to reach 1.4 million units at 2020-end.

“We have exceeded the 1 million threshold in eight months. We expect the year-end house sales to reach 1.4 million despite all the negative developments, especially the pandemic. This is a really important figure,” Akkuş said.

He stressed the fact that the industry supports 250 subindustries, noting that the continuation of the low-interest loan campaign on mortgages was important for employment as well economic indicators.

Akkuş also emphasized that sales to foreigners in August reached 3,893, an all-time monthly high, adding that the area has come back to its pre-pandemic level.

He particularly noted the increasing interest of Chinese and Indian citizens over the recent period.

Nearly 1.35 million housing units were sold in the country in 2019, while up to 45,500 houses were bought by foreigners, seeing a 14.7% increase compared with the previous year.