Facilities provided for residential purchases in Turkey and profitable investments in this area have increased foreign residential sales.

Foreigners, who purchased close to 82,000 residences over the past four-and-a-half years, bought about 50 residences per day.

A total of 81,754 homes were sold to foreigners between January 2013 and June 2017, according to data from the Turkish Statistical Institute (TurkStat) which shows that an average of nearly 50 homes were sold per day in the said period. In particular, the regulation which brought value-added tax (VAT) exemption to foreign residential sales began showing its effects as of April. In the April-June period, foreign residential sales increased by 18.6 percent compared to the same period last year. In this period, foreigners bought 9,595 homes.

By province, the sales figures demonstrate that foreigners mostly purchased residences in Istanbul over the past four-and-a-half years. While 24,813 homes were sold to foreigners during this period in the city, the share of this number in total sales was recorded at 30 percent. Also, the fact that the number of houses sold in Istanbul in June was 78-percent higher than the same month of the previous year was especially noteworthy.Other provinces that came to the fore in residential sales after Istanbul were Antalya with 24,605 and Bursa with 4,850.

Great interest from Gulf citizens

With regards to the nationalities of foreign residential buyers, citizens of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Iraq have always shared the top three spots since the publication of statistics in 2015 began according to classification. During the January 2015-June 2017 period, 8,909 residences were sold to Iraqis, followed by 6,107 residences to Saudis and 4,672 homes to the Kuwaitis.

Among Europeans, top residential buyers in Turkey were Russians with 3,860, followed by the British with 2,204 houses and Germans with 1,884.

Demand to further increase in September

Ali Taylan, the chairman of the Turkish Real Estate Advisory Agencies' Federation (TEMFED), pointed to the increase in foreign sales, especially in June, noting that investors from Arab countries are active in the market.

Stating that demand in provinces of the Black Sea region - like Trabzon - has also increased alongside leading provinces such as Istanbul, Bursa and Sakarya with regards to foreign residential sales, Taylan said that the Arabs are buying not only for residential housing but also for investment purposes.

Explaining his expectations regarding the course this demand will follow in the remaining part of the year, Taylan stressed that the exemption from value-added tax (VAT), which the government provides for foreigners in residential sales, has revived the market, suggesting that with the contribution of this regulation there will be an increase in demand in both domestic and foreigner residential sales, particularly in September.