The government plans to extend the duration of initial residence permits from the current three months for foreigners buying property in Turkey to up to six months or one year.
“We are working to extend the duration of residence permits to six months or one year,” Environment and Urban Planning Minister Erdoğan Bayraktar said at MIPIM, the world's leading real estate event for property professionals, a Turkish daily reported on Thursday.
The government will announce the exact duration of the residence permit in a few weeks, Deputy Prime Minister Ali Babacan said in a keynote address on “Turkey's economic outlook and key investment opportunities” on the second day of the exhibition held in Cannes.
The move is expected to have a positive effect on the construction sector in Turkey, boosting sales in the sector. Elaborating on the need to extend the duration of the permits, Bayraktar said foreigners visiting Turkey wanted to stay for relatively longer periods.
At the beginning of May of last year, Turkey passed a bill concerning the sale of land to foreigners, eliminating the reciprocity requirement and increasing, at the same time, the limit on the size of land that foreigners are able to buy to 30 hectares. Presently, citizens of 183 nations can purchase property in Turkey.
Following the introduction of the new law last year, foreigners bought 11,018 parcels of real estate in Turkey, 8,000 of which are houses. “We hope to double the figure in 2013,” the daily quoted Bayraktar as saying. “After the law was passed, both European and Arab buyers purchased substantial amounts of real estate,” the minister stated.
Russians come first on the list of foreigners who have purchased real estate, while the British, Germans and citizens of Arab countries also comprise a major group. From May of last year to the beginning of March, 2,054 Russian citizens bought 1,676 parcels of property in Turkey, while the British come in second with 1,364 houses. Buyers from Norway, making up 1,018 people, also stand out on the list with 709 parcels.
Turkey attracted $3 billion in foreign real estate investment between 2003 and 2008. This figure stood at $2 billion in 2011. Market observers expect that the anticipated foreign investor influx in Turkish real estate markets could create as much as $5 billion in sales per annum with the new law.
The new law amends title deed laws and changes the previous reciprocity requirement, which dictated that the citizens of 89 countries did not have the right to own property in Turkey because Turkish nationals are not entitled to own property in those countries. Among these countries were Russia, the Gulf States and the Turkic republics of Central Asia.
According to the new law, foreign individuals and businesses are required to submit their project proposals for vacant plots of land to Bayraktar's ministry within two years of purchasing the land. If the ministry approves the project, it will be forwarded to the local land registry office for monitoring.
Turkey is the country of honor at this year's event at Cannes, in which around 20,000 participants from around the world have reportedly attended.
Source: Today's Zaman
