27/04/2015
Homes Can Be Bought in Turkey Even If the Dollar Is Rising
Dr. Gökhan Taş, the Country President for Turkey of the real estate consultancy firm Coldwell Banker, stated that the increase in dollar had had a positive effect on the real estate sector, and said, “That is because real estate is purchased with TL. The real estate market in Turkey is based on TL. When a home is 100 thousand dollars – 220 thousand TL, and the price of the home remains 220 thousand TL when the dollar rises to 2,7 Liras, you can buy the same home for 80 thousand dollars.”
Taş said that in 2014 they had brokered 705 thousand 322 transactions with a total sales volume of 212.2 billion dollars. Taş stated that last year had witnessed the largest number of real estate sales in the history of the Republic, and said, “Domestic demand within the sector came to life in the last quarter of 2014 and a 12 percent increase was seen in property values.”
Taş stated that this year had also begun very well, saying that sales in the first 2 months of 2015 had risen by 7 times when compared to the same period of last year, while there had also been an increase of close to 9 percent in real estate values.
Taş stated that interesting developments were being seen despite the fact that this year is election year and the fact that there are problems on the borders, and continued as follows: “The Russians have gone into crisis but the Arabs have come. At the moment, there are sales to the Arabs. There are significant sales to the Arabs in Yalova, Bursa, the Black Sea Region, Bodrum and the South in particular. Furthermore, the infrastructure problems in Turkey and the transport problems in the big cities are being resolved. Especially the fact that the metro will be spreading towards the perimeters of the city in Istanbul show that the interest in the projects on the perimeters of the city will increase.
The age for home ownership, which was 43, has fallen to 33 in the last 10 years. People have begun to get married very late and to get divorced. Divorce is also a reality of our sector. The square meter unit price for 1 beds and 2 beds is much higher than that for 3 and 4 beds because of this, but despite this we are seeing that the sales figures reached for these are very high. We expect this to continue as the trend at the moment.”
Taş, who stated that the most valuable property they had in their portfolio in Turkey was a 5.3 million Euro mansion in Bodrum, also gave the information that the total figure for all of the real estate purchase – sales transactions in Turkey is 400 billion dollars per annum. Taş pointed out that luxury homes are generally transacted in dollars, and said, “In 2014 the dollar rose by 17 percent in Turkey. At the moment luxury homes are being sold in dollars. However, in general the market is TL based, and the increase in prices is not because of the increase in the dollar, but because of an increase in demand.” Meanwhile, Michael Fischer, the Global Vice-President of Coldwell Banker, stated that many of the markets in the world were not in as good a situation as the market in Turkey.
