The most striking table in housing sales in recent years.

Elfi Real Estate Chairman Özkan Aydemir, who stated that the most striking detail in the June housing sales statistics announced by the Turkish Statistical Institute (TÜİK) was the mortgaged housing sales, said that mortgaged housing sales decreased by 49.4 percent in June compared to the same month of the previous year. Especially pointing out that the rapid increase in housing prices and sales in the last five years slowed down by 2024, with the main reason being the rise in housing loan interest rates, Elfi Real Estate Chairman Özkan Aydemir emphasized that ‘The rising credit interest rates and the preference of citizens with cash accumulation for deposit returns directly affected the construction sector. On the other hand, the biggest obstacle faced by those who want to buy a house using a housing loan was the housing loan interest rates. Looking at the statistics, approximately 50 percent of the housing sales were mortgaged monthly. However, in the latest June 2024 data announced, we see that this rate is 8.6 percent. This is a red alert for both the construction and real estate sectors. If there is no new regulation or campaign for housing loans in the last quarter of the year, serious problems could be encountered in the sector.’ The housing sector is struggling with inflation. Aydemir, who expressed that the construction sector, which could not fully reflect the increasing construction costs on housing sales prices and could not find the expected recovery in housing sales due to the stagnant trend, especially faced great difficulties in combating inflation, said, ‘While there was an average increase of 30 percent in real estate prices in 2024, the announced inflation figures were 70 percent, so real estate investors prefer deposit returns instead of buying houses. Internet platforms, which are most intensively used for the sale of new and second-hand houses, were also affected by the slowdown in the sector. While the number of advertisements increased, the publication periods of the ads extended due to lack of rapid demand. While an average ad should be published for about 45 to 60 days, this period has increased to 75 to 90 days. However, we are hopeful for the last quarter of 2024.’