By Muhammed Ali Gurtas 

ANKARA 

Turkey saw 82,252 house sales in May with a 31.3% annual decline, the country's statistical office reported Monday. 

"Istanbul had the highest share of house sales with 19.3% and 15,895 houses sold," the Turkish Statistical Institute (TurkStat) said. 

The capital Ankara and the Mediterranean resort city of Antalya followed Istanbul with 8,240 and 5,091 house sales, respectively.

The institute noted that 33,765 houses across the country were sold for the first time while the rest were second-hand sales last month.

The mortgaged house sales amounted to 5,231 -- going down 85.8% year-on-year -- with a 6.4% share of all sales in May.

Last year, over 1.37 million property sales were recorded in Turkey while around 650,000 of them were newly-built houses.

Sales to foreigners

Rising 62.5% on a yearly basis, a total of 3,925 properties were sold to foreigners last month.

"Istanbul was the first province with 1,734 sales," TurkStat said, adding that Antalya and Ankara followed the metropolis with 850 and 216 house sales, respectively.

In May, the most house sales were made to Iraqi citizens with 595 properties sold.

The institute said Iraq was followed by Iran, Russia, Afghanistan, and Saudi Arabia.

In 2018, house sales to foreigners posted an annual hike of 78.4%, reaching 39,663 units.

TurkStat will release its next property sales report on July 17.