Türkiye sees 1.22M in house sales in 2023

ISTANBUL

In 2023, 1.22 million houses were sold in Türkiye, down 17.5% from 2022, the country's statistics authority TurkStat said on Friday.

Istanbul, the country's most populous city, had the lion's share of housing sales with 16.2% or 198,739 units last year, followed by the capital Ankara (114,432 or 9.3%) and the Aegean city of Izmir (65,465 or 5.3%).

Housing sales to foreigners fell 48.1% in 2023 on a yearly basis to 35,005 units.

The Mediterranean resort city of Antalya ranked first in sales to foreigners last year with 12,702, followed by Istanbul with 11,229 and then Mersin, also on the Mediterranean, with 3,016.

Russian citizens bought 10,560 houses in Türkiye in 2023, followed by Iranian citizens with 4,272 and Iraqi citizens with 1,917.

The number of mortgage sales dropped 36.6% to 177,748 units in 2023, while other house sales totaled 1.05 million, down 13%.

Some 379,500 housing units sold last year were new, while 846,384 were pre-owned.

In December alone, house sales in the country dropped 33.4% to 138,577 units.

"In December, house sales to foreigners decreased by 67.7% compared to the same month of the previous year to 2,064," it added.