Turkey: Housing sales almost flat in February

By Tuba Sahin and Dilara Zengin

ANKARA (AA) - Property sales in Turkey dipped slightly by 0.2 percent on an annual basis in February, official figures showed on Friday.

Over 101,000 houses changed hands in Turkey during the month, the Turkish Statistical Institute (TurkStat) said in statement.

Of those sales, 1,306 were to foreigners, with 35 percent (or 458 units) of them in Istanbul, the country's largest city by population. This corresponds to a drop of over 17.6 percent compared with the same month last year.

Following Istanbul, the holiday resort city of Antalya came in second with 279 properties, while the northwestern province of Bursa ranked third with 119.

TurkStat data also revealed that Iraqis topped the list of buyers with 282 properties, followed by Saudi Arabians (143 units), Kuwaitis (114), Afghans (81), and Russians (77).

According to Omer Faruk Celik, head of the Housing Developers and Investors Organization (KONUTDER), buyers are taking a "wait-and-see" ahead of Turkey’s April 16 constitutional referendum.

"The downward trend will continue in March and April," Celik added.

Celik also said that this trend might reverse after May as the sector ramps up.

- Mortgage sales up

Melih Tavukcuoglu, head of the Istanbul Anatolian-side Contractors Association, also echoed Celik's view, saying that the sector is in a holding pattern.

"Maybe the result of ongoing housing campaigns, recently introduced by prominent real estate companies, wasn’t reflected in the number of property sales in February. However I think we will see better results in housing sales in March," he added.

Tavukcuoglu also said as the interest rates for housing loans are quite high in Turkey, people “are not keen to borrow from banks”.

Mortgages for house sales in Turkey soared 27 percent year-on-year to 38,676 units during the month.

House sales with mortgages took a 38.1 percent share of all house sales in Turkey. Currently, the mortgage rate for 120 months is between 0.80 percent and 1.20 percent per month.

“Most of the house sales with mortgages were in Istanbul, with sales of 7,247. Istanbul was the first province in Turkey’s ranking with the most house sales with mortgages, with a share of 18.7 percent. Mortgage house sales had the highest share in Artvin, with 58.3 percent of all house sales,” TurkStat added.