Sales of newly built homes in Türkiye picked up slightly in September, according to an analysis of official data by the Real Estate Project Marketing and Sales Platform (GPPS), which also called for stricter rules on homes bought to obtain Turkish citizenship.
Citing September sales figures from TÜİK, the national statistics office, GPPS said 51,519 first-hand homes were sold during the month, including 5,779 bought with a mortgage. That compared with 49,785 in August and 49,608 in September 2025, increases of about 3.5% on the month and about 4% on the year.
Mortgages recover, nine-month sales flat
Over the first nine months, first-hand sales were broadly flat at 359,913, compared with 362,242 a year earlier. Mortgage-financed purchases of new homes, however, rose to 50,745 from 41,166, an increase of about 23%, suggesting that credit is slowly returning to the market despite high interest rates. Loan rules are explained in our mortgage loan-to-value explainer.
Figures cited by GPPS show foreign buyers purchased 2,167 homes in September, up from 1,938 in August and 1,972 a year earlier. In January-September, foreign purchases totalled 15,308, down from 15,992 in the same period of 2025. GPPS expects first-hand sales of 450,000 to 475,000 in 2026 and foreign home sales of 20,000 to 22,000 by year-end. Our earlier report covered foreign purchases in August.
Calls for tougher citizenship rules
GPPS founder and chairman Bilge Özdemir proposed raising the minimum property value for citizenship by investment to $750,000 from the current $400,000, reducing the number of family members who can qualify alongside the investor, and placing a 10-year no-sale annotation on the title deeds (tapu) of such properties. These are proposals from an industry group, not government policy. The current rules are set out in our citizenship by property investment explainer.
The platform also urged TÜİK to publish first-hand and second-hand sales separately, including for mortgage and foreign sales, and said it expects such a breakdown from 2027. İstanbul Chamber of Commerce chairman Şekib Avdagiç made a similar call at a recent GYODER real estate summit, arguing that resales add little direct value to the economy.
Developers are watching demand closely amid a construction slowdown, while state developer Emlak Konut is pressing ahead with large projects such as the third stage of Halkalı West.
Sources
Photo: Maurice Flesier / CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
