Foreign investors keep eye on real estate

The stability in Turkey's economy and high growth rates in recent years have attracted foreign interest in Turkey's real estate market.

Foreign investors choose Turkey as one of the best countries to invest in because of its potential to gain value. Foreigners invested $6.2 billion within the last year in real estate in Turkey, and around $3.1 billion of this was spent on houses and summer houses.

Yatırım Group General Manager Yusuf Gülpınar said European companies in particular are focused on real estate investments in Turkey. "European investment firms, mainly from Austria, England, Holland and Belgium, have made huge real estate purchases," he said.

There were 20 big deals on real estate in the last year alone. One of the world's largest investment funds, the US-based NCH New Europe Property, makes it procurements through Atakule Real Estate Investment Partnership (GYO), Alarko GYO and Yapı Kredi Koray GYO. Swiss-based East Capital Asset Management works with Vakıf GYO, and Universal Overseas Management is the largest share owner of Nurol GYO in the stock market.

Foreign companies invest in promising fields such as business centers, residences and malls, which yield high rent returns in cities like İstanbul, İzmir and Antalya, and country houses on the Aegean and Mediterranean coasts. Real estate specialist Serkan Demir said foreigners spent $6 billion last year on real estate and that this would increase in coming years.

Other groups that have increased their number of real estate investment are Kazakh and Arab investors, whose coffers have grown due to increasing oil and gas prices.

US firms will build suburb complexes

US-based property firms are keen on the housing market. Turkish American Business Association (TABA) President Uğur Terzioğlu said the election of a single-party government had further increased foreign interest in Turkey, adding that many US firms had applied to TABA for recommendations. Terzioğlu said most of the firms that aim to invest in Turkey were finance-based equity firms or funds that also had property branches.

Gülpınar said he was also making assessments for American firms that were going to invest in Turkey. He said some US-based property firms were aiming to launch long-term urban transformation projects in the outer districts of İstanbul such as Kartal and Zeytinburnu. "We are expecting that the large projects like shopping centers and entertainment complexes will spark the sector," Gülpınar said.

Besides these huge projects American property firms also want to build cheap houses for low income groups in the suburbs. They want to build project houses, which are widely used in the US and are 85 square meters in size with one bedroom. Terzioğlu said the firms would prefer the outskirts of the cities since land prices are high in downtown areas.

"Rail transportation is beginning to be widely used, and fast trains go to many points of the city. The new housing projects will be the new living areas of the city like it is in New York and Long Island, which was established after New York and became an urban area for those working in New York," he said.

Vedat Yerli of A-G Construction Co. said the American firms would bring a new style of housing. "Every member of the family will have their own apartments and live apart, unlike in Turkey," he said.


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