Iranians lead the way in buying homes in Türkiye for the fourth consecutive month

A new report from the Turkish Statistical Institute shows that Iranians have topped the list of foreign home buyers in Türkiye for the fourth consecutive month.

Despite Türkiye's borders being closed to Iranian citizens since early March last year, Iranians have continued to buy houses in Türkiye.

Last month, Iranians purchased 205 housing units in Türkiye, equivalent to almost a quarter of all homes sold to foreigners in the country.

In the first five months of the year, Iranians have purchased 2,230 housing units from Turkey, again leading the way in home purchases from Turkey during the period. Of course, these statistics only include apartment purchases and do not include other properties such as commercial or industrial properties (shops, workshops, shopping malls, etc.).

Under a new Turkish law that went into effect in September 2018, foreigners who purchase at least $250,000 worth of real estate in Turkey will be eligible to receive Turkish citizenship. Previously, the requirement for citizenship was to invest $1 million in the Turkish real estate market.

Late last year, Türkiye announced that since 2017, 7,000 foreigners from 101 countries have been able to obtain citizenship through the purchase of real estate, with Iranians leading the way with 1,475 people.

Earlier this month, the Turkish government announced that 9,000 foreigners have so far received Turkish citizenship through investment in real estate, but did not provide detailed statistics on the nationality of the foreigners.

After Iran, citizens of Iraq, Russia, Afghanistan, Yemen, Jordan, Azerbaijan, and Germany have had the highest number of home purchases in Turkey this year.

In the first five months of this year, Turkey sold 12,598,000 housing units to foreigners, a 27 percent decrease compared to the same period last year. This was due to a significant drop in housing sales to foreigners in April and May due to the widespread quarantine caused by the coronavirus outbreak.

Half of the homes sold to foreigners in the first five months of this year were in Istanbul, followed by Antalya, Ankara and Bursa.

Detailed statistics show that house sales in Turkey to foreigners fell nearly 4 times in April compared to the previous month, but showed a slight increase in May compared to April.

Source: Radio Farda