Property sales to foreigners in Turkey rose by 70.9 percent on an annual basis in October, the Turkish Statistical Institute (TurkStat) reported Thursday.

Last month, 122,882 houses were sold in Turkey - marking a 5.7 percent yearly decrease - while foreigners bought 2,677 properties, according to the institute.

Official data showed Istanbul, Turkey's largest city by population, as the top location with 1,321 sales in October to foreigners, followed by the holiday resort city of Antalya and the northwestern province of Bursa.

The TurkStat data revealed that most house sales were made to Saudi Arabian citizens according to the purchasers' nationalities, with Saudis buying 528 houses in Turkey in October.

"The followers of Saudi Arabia were Iraq with 344 house sales, Azerbaijan with 278, Kuwait with 154 and Russia with 125," TurkStat said.

For total property sales in October, Istanbul also had the highest share with 17 percent, or 20,906 sales, while the capital Ankara and the western province of Izmir recorded 12,130 and 7,258 sales, respectively. "In October, mortgaged house sales throughout Turkey dropped to 38,593, decreasing 19.8 percent compared to the same month last year," the institute said, adding, "House sales with mortgages were 31.4 percent of the house sales in Turkey."

The 10-month property sales in Turkey amounted to 1,153,610 this year, while 1,066,085 houses were sold in the period of January to October, 2016.

The next release on this subject will be on Dec. 22, 2017.