Turkey – the world’s leading property hot-spot 2011
Turkey has established itself as the world’s most popular property hotspot marked by over $1.3 billion worth of foreign investment in 2010. Through-out 2011 investors have been flocking to the country which now consistently offers excellent returns for its property owners thanks to its thriving economy and booming tourism industry.
Turkey’s economic growth of 11% in Q1 exceeded every other country in the world by over 2%, the only nation to achieve double digit growth and outpacing China, the second fastest growing economy. Q2 was equally impressive as Turkey developed faster than even India and bettered European growth by over 4 times!
The country’s tourism levels have witnessed similar leaps and bounds over the last few years and now Turkey is the seventh most visited country in the world according to the World Tourism Organisation. Since 2000, Turkey’s year on year tourism growth has been consistently rapid; however 2011 has been extremely impressive. Istanbul recorded a 30.1% increase in tourism revenues in Q1 alone making it the 34th richest city in the world measured by GDP.
Turkey’s dynamic expansion as created a severe shortage of real estate. Supply is not forecast to catch up until at least 2015, which in turn has placed increased upward pressure on prices and rental rates. Istanbul is particular stands out as one of the most in-demand property locations in the world.
As one of the fastest growing cities in the world Istanbul is currently out-pacing every other European metropolis with exponential growth of late. The annual supply of just 180,000 residential units in Istanbul is being completely out-stripped by the yearly demand for over 250,000 homes a year. As result owners are enjoying rental returns of anything between 7- 12% per annum with expected capital gains of over 30% over the next 3-4 years.