The number of houses purchased by foreigners in Turkey in the last 11 years has reached 385 thousand units: Those who get citizenship are gone – Last Minute Economic News

Foreigners who bought houses in our country and completed the three-year legal period for citizenship of the Republic of Turkey started to put them up for sale. While they get away with the citizenship rights they receive, they sell their homes at exorbitant prices and make huge financial profits. For example, those who bought houses for 400 thousand dollars three years ago are selling them for at least 1-1.5 million dollars today.

4.5 PERCENT IN 2022

In 2012, the removal of restrictions on real estate purchases by foreigners and the subsequent practice of granting citizenship with money increased housing sales to this segment. In the last 11 years, the number of houses purchased by foreigners in Turkey reached 385 thousand. It is stated that in recent years, three out of four real estates sold to foreigners were for the purpose of gaining citizenship rights.

From May 2012, when the regulation known as the Reciprocity Law came into force, which removed the restrictions on foreigners from purchasing real estate in Turkey, until the end of February 2024, the number of houses sold to foreigners in Turkey reached 384 thousand 519. The price for real estate purchases for citizenship has been reduced from 1 million dollars to 250 thousand as of September 2018. Following intense reactions, this amount was increased to 400 thousand dollars on June 13, 2022. The year with the highest real estate sales to foreigners was 2022 with 67 thousand 940. In 2021, foreigners bought a total of 58 thousand 576 real estate. However, real estate sales to foreigners last year decreased by almost half compared to 2022 and dropped to 35 thousand units. While the share of housing sales to foreigners in total housing sales was 4.5 percent in 2022, this rate decreased to 2.9 percent in 2023. It is stated that there is a decrease in housing purchases by foreigners in Turkey due to reasons such as the increase in dollar prices, the risk of earthquakes, and the increase in the limits required for citizenship and residence permits.

Nizameddin Asha, President of the Istanbul Chamber of Realtors, pointed out that there has been an increase in the departure of foreigners from Istanbul recently and said, “In order to obtain citizenship for foreigners, there is a condition of not selling the house for three years. Now, those who have completed that three-year requirement and guaranteed citizenship are selling out. “He sells the house he bought for 500 thousand liras for 3 million liras and leaves,” he said.

RUSSIANS ARE FIRST

According to TÜİK data, Russian citizens lead the list of foreigners who have purchased the most houses in Turkey since 2019, with 39 thousand 172 units. The Russia-Ukraine war especially affected this process. While Iranian citizens rank second with the purchase of 35 thousand 573 units, they are followed by Iraqi citizens with 31 thousand 319 units. However, the number of those who received citizenship in Turkey is not announced regularly. In the Ministry of Environment and Urbanization’s response to CHP’s Erkan Aydın’s parliamentary question in 2021, it was announced that 19 thousand 630 foreigners were granted citizenship in exchange for real estate purchases between 2018 and 2021. According to the Ministry’s response, a total of 30 thousand 358 real estates were sold in this context. In addition, while there was a total of 254.2 billion dollars of international direct capital (foreign capital) inflow to Turkey in the 2002-2023 period, 69.6 billion dollars of this figure, 27.4 percent, was real estate sales to foreigners.