Turkey was one of the countries that experienced the least loss in housing sales to foreigners during the Covid-19 pandemic compared to European countries.
According to the report prepared by Nevita, a foreign real estate sales company, the statistics in Turkish housing sales to foreigners in the January-September period was great, despite the pandemic.
Turkish housing sales to foreigners in the first 9 months of 2020 decreased to 26 thousand 165, by 18 percent compared to the same period of 2019, due to the pandemic.
Housing sales to foreigners in September increased by 26.1 percent compared to September 2019 and by 35.3 percent compared to August.
Housing sales to foreigners in Spain decreased by 40 percent in the first half of the year compared to the same period of 2019, to 22.850. The real estate investment by foreigners in Lisbon, the capital of Portugal, decreased by 53 percent in the January-June period. Only 233 residences were sold in Lisbon in the second quarter.
368 investors and 733 family members received a golden visa in Greece in January-August. The 8-month figure was 90 percent below the number of approved applications for 2019 overall. Last year, the applications of 3 thousand 428 investors and 7 thousand 647 family members were approved in Greece.
Again, in Montenegro, one of the new routes of foreign housing investors, foreigners bought 1000 houses in the first 8 months and paid €62.8 million. In 2019, the number of houses sold was 2500, and the amount paid was €177 million.
Real estate is one of the most affected sectors by the pandemic in Italy and France
In Italy and France, among the countries where the epidemic was felt the most, the housing was one of the sectors affected the most.
Housing sales volume in Italy decreased by 15.5 percent in the first quarter and by 27.2 percent in the second quarter. The demand for rental homes increased by 14.2 percent in major Italian cities, while overall demand decreased by 13.2 percent in the March-September period. The most striking situation is in Milan, where the demand for rental houses increased by 68.7 percent. A similar dramatic situation is experienced in Italy in housing sales to foreigners.
France expects a 25 percent decrease in 2020 housing sales while England is expecting a 15 percent decrease.
‘’European real estate took a serious hit.’’
Faruk Akbal, the board chairman of Nevita pointed out that the housing sector has suffered serious damage in European countries that do not manage the pandemic well. Akbal said:
‘’ The housing sales in Turkey in the first 9 months increased to 1.2 million, by almost 34 percent compared to the same period last year. Housing sales to foreigners decreased by only 18 percent. There was also a 26 percent increase in foreign sales in September compared to September 2019.
This figure shows that the uptrend started for foreigners. We can approach 40 thousand units in foreign housing sales and get through the year with the least loss. We have seen that Germany has a positive atmosphere similar to Turkey in the housing sales market to foreigners we analysed in Europe. However, the annual housing sales number in Germany is equivalent to monthly figures of Turkey. Moreover, Germans mostly buy real estate abroad. ‘
We had an important role in introducing Turkish real estate to foreign investors. We are aware of how important each foreign currency we bring from abroad is for the country, therefore they use digital channels for sales intensively during the pandemic period. We sold a total of 160 houses to foreign investors between April and August. In return, we earned ₺208 million worth of foreign currency to our country.
source: AA / translated by Melisa Karayusufoglu