A Guide to Property Investment in Turkey

Turkey is quickly becoming one of the top countries to invest into property. Not only is it a beautiful country with an amazing culture but it has a very low cost of living and can be very cheap to invest into property. It is also expected that Turkey will soon become part of the EU so in the next Ten years it is predicted there will be massive developments all over Turkey which will lead to a massive increase in housing cost. This therefore means there has never been a better time to invest in to property in Turkey.
In June 2003 Turkey liberalized the legislation relating to foreign ownership of property in a bid to begin aligning its real estate laws and regulations with those of the EU member states. As a result of this liberalization there exists a rule known as the “reciprocity principle” that allows foreign citizens to purchase freehold land and property in Turkey if Turkish citizens are allowed to buy freehold land and property in the country from which the foreign citizen heralds.
Another advantage of buying property in Turkey is that it is not as complicated as you may think, in fact it is often even more simple than buying property in the EU as long as you get the right legal representation beforehand.
The only rule a foreigner has when buying property in Turkey is that it must not be located near to a military airport, station or barracks. This rule is for obvious reasons but apart from that you should be free to buy property where ever you please. After an agreed sale, in order to acquire the title of a property, an application has to be made to the local Land Registry Office. The title may be transferred once checks have been made to ensure the property meets all the necessary legal requirements.
It is not necessary to employ a lawyer when buying property but it is highly recommended to ensure nothing goes wrong.
During the transaction, the seller declares that he has received the full purchase price from the buyer. This process can take a few weeks as the Land Registry office needs the official permit papers from the military administration.
Costs                                                                                                     
A 1.5% duty both for the purchaser and seller must be paid.
In addition, there is an annual property tax, collected by the local government at the rate of 0.1% for houses and 0.3% for developed lands. New properties are exempt from 25% of the annual property tax for 5 years. All properties are subject to revaluation every year for tax purposes.
The acquired property may be resold and the proceeds of the sale may be transferred out of Turkey.
There is no time restriction for reselling property after having bought, you can have it registered in your name and resell it the next day.
The buyer must pay a 3% agent's commission. These are standard terms offered by all Turkish estate agents in Turkey.
Remember, that to reserve a property you will need a 10% deposit.
Cash is the easiest way to pay the deposit but understandably most people do not want to carry around this amount of money in a foreign country. The easiest way to do it, is to open a bank account in the resort area of your choice (preferably on the day of your arrival) and then if you have taken cash, deposit it in the account.
Should you sell your property in future, Capital Gains Tax is levied at 25% of the profit between the purchase and sales price