In April, Turkey took the second position in the rating of the most attractive countries for the real estate purchase. The study took into account the interest of buyers from Russia and the countries of the former USSR. This growth is observed for the first time since the beginning of the observation since 2012.

What are the Reasons for the Hype?

The specialists evaluated the buyers’ requests for the purchase of real estate and compared to the results of 2018. Traditionally, the leaders in demand in the last ten years have been Spain, Bulgaria, and Germany. Turkey for a long time has been in the top ten. But, since August last year, the country makes a sharp breakthrough. This event for the real estate market is rare enough because the domestic buyer is conservative. Of course, Turkey’s success is due to several factors:

•  A traditional interest in the Turkish direction from the tourists, since they often become future buyers.
• Over the past year, the Turkish lira has dropped significantly, the price-quality ratio for both Turkish holidays and Turkish real estate remains more than attractive. It is possible to assume that Turkey has consolidated its leading position for several years ahead because the interest in the country is stable, it is visa-free, and the tourist flow is stable and only grows.
• Another reason for the interest in Turkish real estate property is the program of the government adopted last fall. Now, for the purchase of housing worth more than € 222,000 the citizenship is granted.

To Buy or not to Buy?

However, other specialists in this field think that the Turkish passport can hardly be of interest to the Russians. Since one of the buyer’s main motivations is their fear of the ongoing economic and political risks, customers are afraid and therefore are buying alternate airfields, and thus they are psychologically insured against a negative scenario.

And in recent years, such programs are very popular, passports are officially sold in Cyprus and Malta, and residence permit programs are quite popular in Spain, in Portugal, and Greece. Indeed, Turkey has launched its program, but since it is not part of the European Union, it is hard to judge if Russians will consider the Turkish passport as something really cherished and desired. Most of all Russians are interested in the Turkish regions of Alanya, Antalya, and Istanbul.

The growing demand from foreigners is confirmed by the official data of the Turkish Statistical Institute TurkStat. According to their estimates, in March 2019, real estate sales in Turkey to foreign buyers jumped by 73% compared to the same month of 2018. For a month, foreigners purchased 3129 objects, including 156 bought by the Russians.