$65 bln worth of properties sold in 2019

ISTANBUL - Anadolu Agency

Revenues generated from property sales increased more than 14 percent in 2019 compared with 2018, according to data from the general directorate of land registry.

Last year a total of 2.33 million properties, including residential units, offices and land plots, changed hands which generated 389 billion Turkish Liras (around $65 billion) in revenues.

In 2018, the sales of 2.5 million properties generated some 341 billion liras in revenues.

The declared value of all properties sold on average was 166,000 liras last year. 

Over the past five years, the number of properties sold increased by 5.7 percent from 2.2 million to 2.33 million, while revenues from those sales soared 97 percent from 198 billion liras to 389 billion liras.

The Turkish Statistics Institute (TÜİK) reported in January that housing sales in the country declined by 1.9 percent from 2018 to 1.35 million units. 

Nearly 511,700 houses were sold for the first time, while the remaining were second-hand sales, from January to December.

Mortgage-financed home sales exhibited a 20 percent rise to 333,000 units. In December alone, mortgage-finances sales skyrocketed by 603 percent to more than 50,000 units. 

Last year, some 45,500 houses were bought by foreigners, up 14.7 percent compared with 2018.