‘Coasts will benefit land sale’

ANKARA - Anatolia News Agency

This file photo shows a newly built summer house in Bodrum, a popular tourism destination on the Aegean coast. If a draft rule on selling property to all nations is approved, foreigners will flock to coastal areas, a business representative says.

Turkey should waive all reciprocity requirements in property sales to citizens of all countries, the top executive of a Turkish real estate association said Thursday, noting that the move could net the country $5 billion annually.

“The reciprocity criteria prevent many interested foreigners from buying a house in Turkey,” Işık Gökkaya, chairman of the board at the Association of Real Estate Investment Companies, or GYODER, said at a press meeting in Ankara. “Citizens of 39 countries are eager for new property regulations in the country.”

If the country waives the current regulation, many investors from Saudi Arabia, Syria, Dubai, Azerbaijan, Qatar and Iran would rush to Turkey’s rapidly growing real estate market, according to Gökkaya.

Great expectations

The most popular locations for foreigners are the southern province of Antalya, small tourist towns in the southwestern province of Muğla, as well as the Aegean province of İzmir, the chairman said.

The current regulation grants the right to buy residential property in Turkey to the citizens of 54 countries, said Gökkaya, but added that there were many more countries’ nationals who did not possess this right. Noting that the total amount of foreign investment in Turkey’s real estate sector reached 3 billion Turkish Liras in 2005-2008, he said, “In the same period, Spain, which does not require reciprocity for property sales, attracted nearly $10 billion.”