Turkey: Nearly 1.5M houses sold in 2020

By Tuba Sahin

ANKARA (AA) - Nearly 1.5 million houses changed hands in Turkey last year, the Turkish Statistical Institute reported Thursday.

Property sales in the country rose by 11.2% on an annual basis in 2020, according to the institute.

Of those sales, 40,812 were sold to foreigners, with approximately 50% (or 19,175 units) of them in Istanbul, the country's largest city by population. House sales to foreigners slipped 10.3% year-on-year in 2020.

Following Istanbul, the holiday resort town of Antalya came in second with 7,735 properties last year. The capital Ankara ranked third with 2,746 properties.

Iranians topped the list of foreign buyers who bought 7,189 properties, followed by Iraqis (6,674), Russians (3,078), Afghans (1,929) and Azerbaijanis (1,279).

In the overall sales, Istanbul has maintained its top spot with 17.7% of house transfers last year. Ankara, and the western province of Izmir followed, with 10.5% and 6.2% shares, respectively.

Mortgages for house sales in the country climbed to 573,337 in 2020, an increase of 72.4% compared to the previous year.

Sales with mortgages had a 38% share of all house sales in Turkey. Currently, the mortgage rate is between 1.36% and 1.90% per month in Turkey.