Turkish residential property sales rise in November

By Aysu Bicer

ANKARA (AA) - Residential property sales in Turkey increased 59% year-on-year in November, the country's statistical authority said on Tuesday.

A total of 178,814 houses were sold last month, according to the Turkish Statistical Institute (TurkStat).

Housing sales to foreign buyers also rose during the same period, up 48.4% to 7,363 units.

"House sales to foreigners had 4.1% share of all house sales," it underlined.

Istanbul, Turkey's largest city by population, enjoyed the lion's share of sales to foreign buyers, with 2,922 units. The Mediterranean holiday resort city of Antalya followed with 1,917 properties, while the capital Ankara came third with 428.

Among foreign nationals, Iranians bought the most houses – 1,406 houses, followed by Iraqis with 1,075 and Russians 836.

From January-November, some 1.26 million residential properties were sold in Turkey, falling 9.2% from the same period last year.

TurkStat said house sales to foreigners jumped 39.4% on an annual basis to 50,735 in the first 11 months of this year.