Russian demand on Turkish real estate market is due to plans that no one knows

For the past five years, the Russians have refused to give up the first five ranks in the Turkish real estate market, where after decades of purchasing properties in Italy, Spain, Bulgaria and Georgia they turned to Turkey this Eurasian country that captured many foreigners, especially after the renaissance that it has  witnessed over the last two decades.

Turkey's popularity has jumped among Russian investors since 2018, when the total demand for buying property in Turkey increased from 200% to 500%, meaning from the fourth position to the second position, according to figures confirmed by the Russian authorities.

In the past year and early this year 2020, the Russians ranked third in a row in the list of real estate sales in Turkey, and the Russians were one of the most active foreign nationalities in the Turkish real estate market, where the purchase rate of property in Turkey by them doubled by 26% during 2019 compared to the previous year.

The Russians ranked among the list of the largest foreign real estate consumers in Turkey after both Iran and Iraq at the beginning of 2020 and after both Iraq and Iran during the year 2019, when they purchased property in Turkey intensively amounted to 2893 properties out of 46 thousand properties sold to foreigners in Turkey and 1. 35 million properties sold in total in the country in 2019.

Why did the Russians turn towards the Turkish real estate market?

Russian investors have found a significant decrease in the prices of property in Turkey compared to local real estate or that they were accepting in Western European countries, such as Italy and Spain, taking into account the quality of construction, climate and infrastructure in Turkey, as it was competing strongly with the quality of construction in the countries of the European Union.

For a whole decade, Turkey became the Russians ’favorite destination in tourism, as the number of Russian tourists in Turkey during the year 2019 reached over 7 million tourists, or 14% of the total foreign tourists, and thus the nature of the country’s tourist and magical areas, made many Russian tourists think seriously about buying property in Turkey for tourist, investment or residential purposes.

As we mentioned earlier, the quality of the building, its materials, finishes and social services, especially in residential complexes, is well suited to the Russian taste, and thus the demand for property in Turkey has increased.

For his part, the low cost of living and taxes of various kinds, especially those related to real estate ownership, contributed to the increase in the popularity of the Russians to buy property in Turkey in a remarkable and significant way during the last two years.

Among the advantages that make Russians choose Turkey for real estate ownership is the warm climate and the amazing spring and summer weather, especially in the southern city of Antalya, compared to the very cold Russian weather almost all year round.

In addition, granting Turkish citizenship in exchange for buying property in Turkey that only worth 250,000 dollars is considered one of the biggest incentives that pushed Russians towards this country especially those who were dazzled by Turkey as a country, culture, customs and traditions, in addition to the facilitative measure to cancel the entry visa between the citizens of both countries holding service and private passports.

Obtaining Turkish citizenship offers Russians the opportunity to cancel the visa to enter two important countries, Singapore and Japan, in addition to the possibility for Russians who hold the Turkish passport to obtain American citizenship easily through a US investor visa.

Where do Russians buy property in Turkey?

According to what most statistics show, the Russians have made the process of owning property in Turkey in many cities, but the most popular among them was the cities of Antalya and Alanya on the banks of the Mediterranean, where there are luxury residential resorts that are well suited for investment with guaranteed profitable returns, which is in line with the investment plans of Russian citizens who buy property in Turkey for the purpose of reselling it in the future with double profits when prices rise. It is worth noting here that house prices in Turkey and real estate prices in general are known to increase periodically due to the increase in infrastructure projects and major facilities such as the third airport in Istanbul and the Istanbul water Canal.