Keith’s Weekly Property News Fabruary 25-2024
A few more weeks in the property market downturn of Turkey have passed without much new to be said on the subject. As of this date, it seems that property prices are 10-15% off of their highs a year ago, and perhaps things will settle at 20% down before slow rebound. However, it must be noted that this is NOT a uniform decline across all property types and locations. We could expect less depreciation on properties located in the downtowns of major cities and also for more ‘blue chip” type properties. Of course, the more the downturn deepens and extends, it will ultimately affect all kinds of properties, yet we have not seen much evidence of that yet. But we can say that the volume of transactions has fallen markedly and that sellers do have to face the reality that they are outnumbering buyers. If you have been on the sidelines waiting to get in for the past few years, I can think of no better time than the present to be actively engaging with the market. Lots of fair market prices popping up, and some perhaps even below market price. As always, a little bit of diligence and research will help you understand all the subtleties and nuances of what we many times have referred to as an “asymmetric” market. This, however, does not mean that the market lacks logic; it does have its internal logic, but it is not always readily apparent from scanning listings on sahibinden.com
There are times when you really do have to get down into the weeds to see how it all works.
There are just too many “distractors”, inconsistencies, errors and deceptions in the marketing of properties that doing something just as basic as an SQM price analysis alone will not produce a meaningful result. You have to be able to turn on the fuzzy logic and hold 10 different bits of information about the property in your head at one time. Yes, looking at some fundamentals is useful, but be prepared to second guess it, hold it up to the light of reason. If SQM analysis alone is leading you down some dark alleyways, be prepared to add some elements to your criteria. Attending zoom sessions and hearing from past buyers would be my first step if I were looking to acquire a more in-depth knowledge of markets in places such as Izmir, Kocaeli, and Istanbul.
Rental market:
The rental market has been its most sluggish in the past few months for several years. This is most likely the result, beyond just seasonality, of Turkish households hunkering down in the face of ongoing, punishing inflation that daily eats away at their bottom lines. Making financial decisions in this environment, even if it’s just committing to a rental contract, is often being deferred. University students, unmarried young people (and even married), are almost certainly staying in their parents’ home longer than they were just a few, short years ago. This ultimately knocks on to the rental market. If I were to hazard a guess, rents converted to USD are off at least a similar amount to the 10-15% quoted on sales figures. It seems like that has levelled off and I expect rental demand to start to surge in the Spring at the latest, barring any further and major negative economic news.
AIRBNB news:
We have put together a focus group that is getting into the nitty gritty of getting full compliance for short term rental licensing (Airbnb). One of our contacts is applying for licenses for 3 buildings, all of which have large number of individual owners who agreed to undertake the process. We will be able to gather precise information from this real world experience:
-approximate costs for individual owners.
-what documents are needed.
-any other additional challenges.
-time lines and other details.
For now, you should keep the following in mind:
1-You need to be a Turkish citizen or resident to apply because you need an E-devlet password.
2- Consent from all owners in building is required, so if you are sure there are several people opposed to it in your building, it is probably not worth the effort.
3- Your title deed should be registered as “residential”.
After we get through these initial 3 applications, we will be able to offer a service to clients and non-clients to initiate the application process (arrange meetings with individual owners, attend building meetings, submit paper work, perform actions to make the property compliant for license). Necessarily, we will charge a fee for that, even if we were to not subsequently manage your Airbnb.
We will also be hosting a quiz show tonight, so please do try to join!!!!!
Properties will be distributed in meeting. If you like, PM me and I will send them to you directly.
We invite you to join us for:
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