Russians emerge as top foreign buyers of Turkish property

Since the war erupted in Ukraine, Russians became the biggest foreign nationality of property buyers in Turkey, overtaking Iranians and Iraqis, Newsweek reported. 

Between April and July 2021, 1,186 properties were sold to Russians. That number more than quadrupled and rose to 5,342 during the same period In 2022.

One of the benefits of purchasing a property in Turkey is that the buyers can get Turkish citizenship as well. In April, the Turkish government increased the minimum property price to 400,000 USD for citizenship requirements. Before April, the threshold was 250,000 USD and before 2017, it was 1 million USD.

With the lowering of the threshold property price, the foreign buyers in Turkey increased from 22,400 in 2017 to 40,000 in 2018. In 2021, this number rose to 60,000, and already in 2022, there have been 40,000 foreign buyers.

Besides real estate, Turkey also became a haven for Russian yachts.

Turkey has a complicated relationship between the West and Russia. Ankara initially blocked the Finnish and Swedish accession to NATO and has not imposed sanctions on Russia unlike the US and the EU countries. Turkey also tries to act as the mediator between Ukraine and Russia and made a deal to unlock Ukrainian grain exports.