Why Istanbul
Why Istanbul
Turkey is one of the promising real estate markets in Europe, and the known slogan “Location is everything” completely applies to it. With a strategic location at the crossroads of Europe, the Middle East and Central Asia, Turkey is home to nearly 81 million people and offers great opportunities for developers and investors by combining the huge construction sector with the growing commercial and industrial production.
Some key facts and figures in the Turkish real estate sector include
- The real estate sector took over nearly 8.4% of GDP in the last decade. As for the investment, FDI inflows reached $10.8 billion, and the real estate and construction sector attracted $4.6 billion (42.9%) of the total FDI in 2017.
- The urban renewal and major projects dominate the agenda for the near future, especially in Istanbul. It includes some projects in some areas of the city like: Marmaray project, Istanbul Canal project, Yavuz Sultan Selim Bridge, Avrasya Tunnel, the 3-Deck Great Istanbul Tunnel, and the new Istanbul Grand Airport.
- The Urban Renewal and Development Initiative encompass 7.5 million housing units. The project has a budget of USD 400 billion, with a great contribution coming from the private sector.
- According to the ‘Night Frank’ index for global house price, Turkey ranked the 6th out of the 56 in the third quarter of 2017 in terms of the annual price growth index. Turkey witnessed annual increase of 11.1%, and thus emerged as one of the top performing housing markets in the world, ahead of Australia, Latvia & India.
- The total number of houses sold in the Turkish real estate market reached 1.4 million units in 2017; similarly, the real estate sales to foreigners started to increase after the abolishment of the reciprocity law in 2012. In 2017, 22,234 houses were sold to foreigners in Turkey, indicating annual increase of 22.2%. In regards of house sales to foreigners, Istanbul was the top performing province with 8182 sales in 2017, followed by Antalya with 4707 sales, then Bursa with 1474 sales, and last Yalova with 1079 sales.
- By the end of 2017, the A-Grade office in Istanbul reached a total of 5.3 million Square meters extended over 249 office buildings. The area growth percentage for renting in the office market reached almost 12% between 2010 and 2017. There is more than 1.2 million square meters of offices under construction; and it is expected that the total area of A-Grade offices will reach almost 7.1 million square meters gross leasable area by the end of 2020
- There are 401 shopping centers operating in Turkey with a total gross leasable area of 12.2 million square meters. 144 shopping centers in Istanbul with a total gross leasable area of 4.2 million square meters represent 34% of the total leasable shopping center area in Turkey.
- According to the Cross Border Retailer Attractiveness Index of JLL company in 2016, Istanbul ranked the 6th most attractive market in Europe, coming after London, Paris, Moscow, Milano and Madrid.
- In spite of the growth in the recent years, Turkey is still below average of the total leasable area per person compared to the Europe average. This indicates the potential for further growth of retailing in Turkey.
- According to the Ministry of Culture and Tourism in 2016, Turkey encompasses 3641 graded hotels with a total of 426,981 rooms in the end of 2016. The 5-star hotels acquired 42.7% of the hotel stock, whereas the 4-star hotels reached 24.8%, and the 3-star hotels made up 12.6% of the market share.
