Turkey sees 434,757 house sales in Jan-May

In Turkey, 434,757 residential properties were sold in the first five months of 2020, the country's statistical authority announced on Monday.

Housing sales dropped 2.2% or 9,684 units in the five-month period, compared to the same period last year, according to the Turkish Statistical Institute (TurkStat) data.

During the first five months of this year, 139,140 new houses were sold, while the remaining were second-hand sales.

Istanbul -- Turkey's largest city by population and one of its top tourist centers -- took the largest share of housing sales with 11.2% or 48,752 houses in the period.

Official data showed the capital Ankara and the Aegean province of İzmir racked up 25,613 (5.9%) and 15,866 (3.6%) of total housing sales, respectively.

Mortgaged housing sales were recorded at 164,870 -- a 37.9% share of all sales over the same period.

In May, housing sales dropped 44.6% to reach some 50,936 units -- 16,860 new and around 34,000 second-hand -- on a yearly basis.

HOUSE SALES TO FOREIGNERS

In January-May, some 12,734 houses were bought by foreigners, down from 17,452 units from the same period of 2019.

Istanbul was the top city for foreigners with 6,172 property sales, while the Mediterranean resort city of Antalya (2,431 sales) and capital Ankara (784 sales) followed it.

Iranian citizens were top buyers of Turkish properties with 2,230 housing sales. Iraqis, Afghans, Chinese, and Azerbaijanis were among the top five.

In May 2020, foreigners bought some 860 housing units, down from 3,925 on an annual basis.