Turkey: House sales to foreigners rise 70.9 pct in Oct.

Property sales to foreigners in Turkey rose by 70.9 percent on an annual basis in October, the Turkish Statistical Institute (TurkStat) reported Thursday.

Last month, 122,882 houses were sold in Turkey -- marking a 5.7 percent yearly decrease -- while foreigners bought 2,677 properties, according to the institute.

Official data showed Istanbul, Turkey's largest city by population, was the top location with 1,321 sales in October to foreigners, followed by the holiday resort city of Antalya and the northwestern province of Bursa.

TurkStat data revealed that most house sales were made to Saudi Arabian citizens according to country nationalities, as Saudis bought 528 houses from Turkey in October.

"The followers of Saudi Arabia were Iraq with 344 house sales, Azerbaijan with 278 house sales, Kuwait with 154 house sales and Russia with 125 house sales," TurkStat said.

For total property sales in October, Istanbul had also the highest share with 17 percent or 20,906 sales while the capital, Ankara, and the western province of Izmir recorded 12,130 and 7,258 sales, respectively.

"In October, the mortgaged house sales throughout Turkey became 38,593 by decreasing 19.8 percent compared to the same month of last year," the institute said, adding:

"House sales with mortgage had a 31.4 percent share of all house sales in Turkey."

The ten-month property sales in Turkey amounted to 1,153,610 this year while 1,066,085 houses were sold in the period of January-October 2016.

The next release on this subject will be on Dec. 22, 2017.