16 January 2019•Update: 16 January 2019
By Muhammed Ali Gurtas
ANKARA
Turkey recorded over 1.37 million house sales in 2018, the country's statistical office reported Wednesday.
TurkStat said property sales fell by 2.4 percent last year, compared to the previous year.
"Istanbul had the highest share of house sales with 17 percent and 234,055 sold houses," it said.
The capital Ankara and the Aegean province of Izmir followed Istanbul with 131,161 and 75,672 house sales, respectively.
"In Turkey, 276,820 of all sales were mortgaged sales and 1,098,578 are other house sales," TurkStat said.
The institute stated that around 650,000 newly-built houses were sold while the rest were second-hand sales in 2018.
Sales to foreigners
Last year, property sales to foreigners posted an annual hike of 78.4 percent to reach 39,663 houses.
The most preferred city in 2018 was Istanbul with 14,270 sales -- followed by the Mediterranean resort city of Antalya with 7,938 sales throughout the year.
By nationalities, most house sales were made to Iraqi citizens with 8,205 units.
Iranians bought 3,652 houses, while Saudis with 2,718, Russians with 2,297 and Kuwaitis with 2,199 house sales followed Iran, the institute said.
TurkStat will release its next property sales report -- for January -- on Monday, Feb. 18.
