Buying a property in Turkey in general and in Istanbul in particular has become a matter of concern to millions of foreign investors around the world, especially after the Turkish government issued a law of granting Turkish citizenship for free for everyone who buys real estate worth at least $ 250.000, provided that it is kept for 3 years before reselling it again.
We notice in Right Home from hundreds of customers we are communicating with them monthly that many of them are new customers on the Turkish real estate market and therefore the time plan for owning a property in Turkey is not clear to them because they don't know the time required for them to be able to choose the right property and complete the purchase process.
For example, a customer would like to obtain Turkish citizenship through real estate investment, but he is fully aware that the amount necessary to obtain Turkish citizenship will not be available with him for a period of 6 months to a year and starts from now to request offers for current real estate prices that will certainly not be available after this period, that the prices maybe risen dramatically, and this in itself will complicate the matter when the necessary budget for real estate purchase is completed.
Also, on the contrary, there are clients who are able to make a purchase decision now, but they declare incorrect information to the real estate marketing agencies about the time of making the decision, for example a client may say I do not want to buy real estate now, I want an overview of the market and therefore our consulting team will introduce him to the real estate market in terms of areas and basics and will leave the issue of real estate prices and real offers until a time when the customer is fully ready, and suddenly we find that the customer has been paid with a fake offer from a novice real estate consultant from another company to make the purchase in a hurry in a project that is not suitable for his purpose of purchase, whether housing or an investment.
Today, in order to avoid these cases that we mentioned and many others, we will determine the necessary steps to buy a property in Turkey and with each step we will provide the appropriate schedule for it.
- Prepare answers to the following basic questions:
- What is the purpose of buying the property, is it for housing or investment?
- If it is for housing, is it an apartment or villa? and if it is for investment, is it a property under construction, a furnished apartment for tourist leasing, or a commercial store?
- Is the goal to obtain Turkish citizenship or not? Because there are properties that are not suitable for Turkish citizenship, and if the goal of owning the property is to obtain Turkish citizenship, then this means that the budget required to buy a property or group of real estate must not be less than $ 250.000 according to the law issued by the Turkish government. (Any promises to obtain Turkish citizenship in an amount less than $ 250.000 are false promises because the text of the law is clear and explicit and any manipulation will expose you to legal accountability and not the real estate broker who advised you to buy a property less than this amount and claimed that it is suitable for Turkish citizenship).
- When are you ready to make the purchase assuming you found the right properties?
Remember, if you want to obtain Turkish citizenship through buying real estate, the amount must be paid through a bank transfer, whether from inside or outside Turkey, and cash payment is not accepted (according to the Turkish government law regarding the law of granting Turkish citizenship to foreign investors).
Thus, if you are in a country that prevents direct international transfers, you must find a suitable way to bring your money to Turkey and open a bank account here in order to make the purchase through a bank transfer.
As for the timeframe, determining the answers to these questions only takes several days, and if you are not able to determine your goal of buying the property, is it residential or investment, do not worry at all. This is the task of our qualified advisory team to introduce you to the Turkish real estate market in detail.
- Choosing the right real estate broker, paying attention to the following points:
- Choose a professional real estate marketing company with a website rich in real projects and with a live blog that discusses matters of interest to those wishing to buy real estate and not only its sole goal is marketing and selling the largest number of clients without carefully taking care of each client's request, you will get to know the professional real estate company also through the speed of communication and the quality of the designs presented to you in the form of files summarizing projects or videos and pictures.
- Communicating with more than one real estate broker is your right, but remember that the exaggeration in communicating with a large number of real estate brokers will have a negative impact on you and you will be unable to distinguish the advisor who cares about your interest from the misleader who only concerns his interest, we at Right Home deal with more than 350 real estate projects all over Istanbul, and therefore whether your request is residential or investment in any area of Istanbul and with any budget, you will find that we have what suits you.
As for the timeframe for this point, it is relatively short. You can open Google search engine and type "the best areas to live in Istanbul" or "the best investment projects in Istanbul 2023" and enter the first sites to start the communication process. If you didn't like the first mediator, you can move to the second and so on.
3- The right start:
Istanbul is a very large city and extends between the continents of Europe and Asia, separated by the Bosphorus Strait, and it is a city that extends accidentally in which real estate with high prices near the Bosphorus and has cheap real estate in the distant suburbs of the city and in it the middle so before judging any offer you will get, whether for housing or investment, you need to know the following:
- If your goal is an investment, you must know how to invest in real estate in Istanbul, we have found many customers who measure real estate investment in Istanbul with real estate investment in their countries and therefore prefer to buy cheap ready-made properties in the distant suburbs of Istanbul and start renting them to obtain an investment return. This investment may be successful in your country, but in Istanbul, of course, it is not the best investment, as the value of the rental return in Istanbul is related to the location of the property and the services surrounding it much more than the area of the property itself, for example a small property of 70 square meters in the city centre near a transportation station with rental yield is higher than a very large property of 400 square meters in the suburbs of Istanbul far from the centre, and both properties are approximately the same price.
Also, the rental return as an annual percentage in Istanbul will be an average of 5% every year, and therefore each property needs 20 years to pay its original price, while in projects under construction, the investment return may reach 35% within one year of the total property price and therefore if the property needs two years to be ready, you will get 60% to 70% of the value of your capital compared to only 10% of the rental return on a ready property.
There is a very important point in real estate investment in Istanbul, which is the process of reselling real estate later, and here comes the importance of choosing the right location, as it facilitates selling the property later and achieving additional profits, and on the contrary, buying cheap properties far from the centre of Istanbul will not only have low rental returns, but also when reselling, it can lose its original value by a not small percentage, especially with the high inflation rates of the Turkish lira against foreign currencies.
This information may seem somewhat new and complicated, but our consulting team works with you to facilitate these concepts and provide real examples with numbers in order to ensure that you get the best property for your request.
- If your request is residential, you must make sure that the location of the property is suitable for you and your family in terms of surrounding services, educational centres, important facilities and transportation, and also it must have a suitable area for you now and in the future, and therefore you will not have to change the property every several years because of its area that is no longer sufficient for your needs. The important thing is also to choose a suitable area for your culture and interests, and it is beautiful in Istanbul that it includes many options that suit everyone, regard their preferences.
The timeframe for this stage depends on the size of the investment you want to make or the time sufficient to choose the residential property that suits your needs, and in both cases our advisory team is able within a period of 10 days to familiarize you with everything you care about in real estate ownership, whether with the aim of housing or investment and also to answer all your questions regarding Turkish laws and the laws on ownership and acquisition of Turkish citizenship.
4- Choose the right property:
After you made a correct start and got acquainted with the areas of Istanbul and how to invest in real estate and also learned about the laws that concern foreigners in order to own real estate, now you are ready to choose the right property for you, and here you remember the following:
- The professional real estate consultant who introduced you to all the previous points is able to find the best price offer for you for the property that you like.
- The professional company is characterized by services during and after the sale, so always remember to start your real estate tour with the company with the highest professionalism and if it does not suit you what was presented on the ground, you can move to the next company. We noticed a number of clients who contacted us and our consulting team provided them with detailed and accurate information about everything they wanted to inquire about. When they came to Istanbul, they were tempted by new companies in the market that they had better and cheaper offers and therefore when going out with real estate tours they were deceived and sold properties that are not suitable for their request in addition to the lack of after-sales services, in order to avoid this and ensure that you get the right property, we recommend that you make your first tour with the best real estate consultant.
- If you build a correct ground for ownership and investment in Istanbul, then you yourself can find the best property and the task of our sales consultant is to introduce you to the projects that suit you and negotiate in order to get the best price and payment method for you.
The timeframe for this process depends on the customer’s own activity and the extent to which he has achieved the previous steps that we talked about. We found not a few clients after contacting our consulting team and providing all the necessary information choose the right property for him on the ground, and the largest number of clients within less than a week will have chosen the right property for him.
In conclusion, we can say that the process of getting to know the Turkish real estate market depends on the customer’s activity itself. If the tips and points we presented above are followed, the timeframe for this entire process will be from 15 days to 30 days.
We noticed according to our experience that customers who are looking for real estate offers for a period of more than three months (although they are ready to own real estate from now), this delay is not in their interest because the real estate market in Istanbul is a dynamic and rapidly developing market, and therefore the opportunities that exist today will not exist after several months in terms of availability or in terms of price, and therefore we always advise the customer whose information is complete to carry out the ownership process today before tomorrow.
