Turkey’s main opposition promises ban on house sales to foreigners

Turkey will ban house sales to foreigners and the ban will remain in force until prices reach an equilibrium, main opposition CHP (Republican People’s Party) leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu said on Tuesday.

Kilicdaroglu said costs and rents were inflating because the government enabled the foreigners to buy houses in Turkey in favorable conditions.

“Because of the cruel order of the palace, it became a dream for our people to have a home. Rents are also inflating. Our citizens are persecuted in their own homeland. In 6 months, we will ban the sale of residences to foreigners for five years. The ban will not be lifted until the price equilibrium is established. Our priority is our own people,” he tweeted.

In the January-November period, house sales to foreigners increased by 20.4% compared to the same period of the previous year and became 61 thousand 104.

The south coast city of Antalya ranked first with 2 thousand 616 sales to foreigners, according to TUIK.

Last month, some 13,000 people in the Mediterranean city signed a petition seeking a ban on foreigners in the real estate market, worried their arrival has driven up house prices and rents.

Turkey has become a leader in house sales to foreigners due to a large number of advantages, but mainly due to a combination of three main factors, according to experts.

”The country makes it possible to obtain citizenship through investment in real estate with minimal effort to collect documents. Also, after obtaining a passport, you can get a migration visa to the United States E-2, which is currently not available to Russians. In addition, if you inves in an object under construction, you can also earn capital gains. And Turkey allows you to pay for housing from unauthorized Russian banks,” said Anna Larina, head of projects at the overseas property department of NF Group.

Between 2017 and 2019, home purchases by foreigners more than doubled to almost 46,000 units, with Iranians and Iraqis as the most frequent buyers.

But throughout 2022, sales to foreigners jumped nearly 50 percent as Russians and Ukrainians started to flee the ongoing war. In May 2022, the government increased the citizenship threshold from $250.000 to $400,000.