Turkey to be Overseas Property Hotspot in 2011

Write About Property’s Liam Bailey has predicted that Turkey property will be the hottest overseas property investment in 2011. Bailey pointed out his surprise that he would do so, having been a staunch member of the “Turkey-needs-EU-membership” brigade until this year.

Bailey cited the excellent fiscal management by the AK party, which has focussed on paying down public debt even while its neighbours and competitors (Greece, Portugal, Spain) were running up huge tabs. On top of that, the banking reforms made after the Turkish financial crisis in 2001 left them able to withstand the crisis.

This left Turkey in a strong position when the crisis struck, because liquidity was high, and it was also able to lower interest rates as a measure of budgetary management rather than purely a alarmist way of fighting of the crisis. This calm, measured response increased the confidence of investors,

But, said Bailey, "what really sums up present day Turkey vis-a-vis worthiness as a property investment destination, with or without EU accession, is the great irony of Turkey ending its reliance on IMF assistance less than 1 year before Greece and Ireland would need such assistance.

"The balance of stability, high growth, high liquidity, low property prices and low interest rates is sure to make Turkey property a favourite with investors in 2011," he said.

Bailey said in other statements that Istanbul property was one of the top choices with pure investors, which are becoming more common in the Turkish property market, on top of the already strong holiday property market.

New Istanbul Airport to Increase Accessibility of Turkish Property Markets

The Silviri District, a suburban area in western Istanbul is to become home to the city’s third airport, after the airport was green lighted by mayor Kadir Topbas. The airport, which is being built because of massive growth in passenger numbers to the city’s existing airports, is to be the biggest of them all. According to the mayor the new airport will be several times larger than Istanbul Ataturk.

The mayor also revealed plans for further expansions in the city’s airport capacity, via expansions at the existing airports, he said:

"These plans have been made in cooperation with the Transportation Ministry. They want to increase the capacity of the current airports in a short period of time. There is an additional runway at Sabiha Gökçen. We are considering building another runway at Ataturk Airport. But we have added a third airport to our plans."

Istanbul Ataturk, the city’s main airport received some 30 million passengers in 2009. It also saw passenger numbers increase 13% year on year in the first four months of 2010.

Meanwhile, smaller airport Sabiha Gökçen, home to the majority of Istanbul’s budget capacity is also seeing passenger numbers grow rapidly; it is expected to receive in excess of 11 million passengers this year.

The new airport has the potential not only to boost the Istanbul property market, but the Turkey property market as a whole. For many tourists around the world, connecting flights are a necessary evil, and for others a significant saving, the new airport will therefor increase accessibility of property markets across Turkey.

Izmir to Istanbul Superhighway Breaks Ground

The massive highway linking Izmir and Istanbul, which is one of the largest infrastructure development projects in Europe broke ground this Thursday,

"We are launching today one of the biggest projects in the history of our republic," said Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan at the ceremony.

The project includes a suspension bridge over the gulf of Izmir, which will be one of the biggest such bridges in Europe.

It currently takes 8 hours to travel between Istanbul and Izmir, this will be cut to less than 4 hours, and the distance will also be cut by 140k. This will be massively beneficial to the local economy.

Construction of the 11 billion TYR superhighway alone will create 60,000 jobs (10,000 directly and 50,000 indirectly), and the benefits will continue after its completion in 2017, as businesses can transport goods more quickly and cost effectively to the trading hub and ports of Istanbul.

Istanbul is the cultural centre of Turkey, and one of its biggest, most populous, and fastest growing cities. The benefit of transport links, and the ability to commute to find work in the city grows every day.

The highway will no doubt lead to increasing migration to Istanbul from rural areas, and this could easily push up the value of Istanbul property.

Of course the project alone will no doubt boost sales of property in Turkey, because it, along with many other projects announced and currently underway, shows that the Turkish government is committed, and investing heavily to improve the infrastructure.