The New Ways of Turkey's Property Market in the Digital Age

A foreign property owner selling and wanting to find a buyer needs first to come to terms with the reality of the market today, in the internet age, a digital world.  And doing so will open their eyes to many advantages in the new way property is bought and sold, compared to the old ways. Not only can the foreign seller find a Turkish buyer faster, there is also no need to deal with an agent and their lies, and no need to pay huge commissions for the privilege…! 

Wake up, people….

So how does a foreigner that doesn’t speak Turkish get into the ‘real’ property sector in Turkey and deal with everything that needs doing? The best way to start is an easy solution- it’s the starters’ kit at mytapu.com… the Sellers Tool-kit for Residential Property in Turkey. This tool kit provides help, guidance, support to D.I.Y Do-It-Yourself selling of your property on the new digital platforms; because all the platforms are designed and working this way:  Peer – to – Peer. They work so that buyers and sellers can deal direct with each other…there’s no place for agents…! Desperate agents have wedged their way in, but they are not welcome by buyers or sellers. For example, the name of the biggest on-line exchange, when translated into English means… ‘For Sale Direct from the Owner’. These on-line exchanges are NOT small experimental fly-by-night start up operations. These are huge business owned by the Turkiye’s largest holding companies quoted on the Istanbul Stock Exchange. 

Sellers, what are you waiting for ? (Besides months and months for your agent and then maybe if they somehow trick one more foreigner into believing their sales pitch illusions, as a buyer, you are rewarded by paying the huge commission…!)

So Who Are These Turkish On-Line Buyers…?

Yes, in recent years the incoming waves of foreign buyers of Turkish property has subsided. Today the largest segment of foreign buyers are the Citizenship buyers, but they can not purchase a property being sold by a foreign owner, so not much hope of a foreign owner finding a buyer there. 

So if there are few buyers in the English speaking foreign sector of the real estate market in Turkey, what about in the Turkish language speaking sector?

Surprisingly, and thankfully, that is a whole different world. And it is a world full of better and smarter ways to do real estate business, with many new innovations, now as advanced as anywhere in the world, and more so,  than most places. 

To understand why, it helps to know a vital statistic: Turkiye has the third highest on-line mobile phone usage in the world. Yes that’s right, ahead of countries like the UK, Netherlands, Russia….

And the second statistic is even more remarkable: less than 1/3 of the population in Turkey has ever been on the internet…!

So how is it possible for both to exist? What does it mean? Quite simply it means that 1/3 of the Turkish population are using on-line solutions far more intensively and pervasively than anywhere else in the world. So who are these people in this 1/3 of the population?

These people are the university educated, i-phone packing, upwardly mobile classes, and upper income segments of society. Yes, that’s right…! These are the best potential buyers of property a seller could ever wish to find. And it is this segment of society that uses the digital on-line property markets in Turkey.

So when these well-educated, clever, successful and wealthy on-line users want to find and buy a property, what reason would they have for going to a local corner shop ‘emlakci’, or on-line English-speaking ‘emlakci’ agent, and suffering all the nonsense, lies and tricks emlakcis are reputed and disdained for?  These sensible buyers just do not do it…!  Most times if a buyer finds out an agent is involved, the buyer will turn off and never have anything further to do with the agent: never mind the property being seen- no chance!

Instead, these smart Turksih buyers deal directly with the property owners that are selling, at the on-line Turkish language property portals. If you are a foreigner with a property to sell in Turkey, wouldn’t you rather be selling to these affluent Turkish buyers directly at an on-line portal, instead of waiting and wondering about your English speaking ‘emlakci’ ?

Foreign Owned Property Does Not Qualify for Citizenship Investment Purposes...

Recently with changes to Citizenship Investment criteria to $250,000, there has been an increase of foreign buying from different parts of the world than Northern Europe, as was the case previously. Most of this buying is centred in Istanbul. And to qualify for citizenship, the property must be purchased from a Turkish owner: if you are non-Turkish and selling your property in Turkey, a citizenship investor can not buy it to qualify for a Turkish passport.