My Tour of an Istanbul Apartment for Sale + Turkish Real Estate Market

it's a Saturday afternoon here in Istanbul wanted to bring you on a real life tour waiting for our real-estate agent Keith who has been showing me around here for the last six months whether you want properties for citizenship Turkish citizenship $250,000 whether you want to invest we're gonna go on a real life tour of an apartment in for sale in Istanbul right now [Music] hey man how's it going hey Andrew how you doing welcome welcome back this Tamil oh thank you so this is I told them we're gonna go see an apartment that you picked out to show us whether it's for citizenship or for whatever else but tell us where we're at right now this is the Chi hunger neighborhood that's right we're kind of in the center of Chi hunger we're about five minute walk from Taksim Square and if you walk down these very steep steps that takes you right to the coast road and right down to the Bosphorus okay so we have water down here yeah that's right and then one Street up you said is is caddesi there's a Treehugger caddesi the main street that's right yeah and there's a park up there in the main street of Jahangir and there you have all the cafes and restaurants and entertainment venues and she hungers so it's pretty popular location and so you've been a real estate agent in Istanbul for how long about 13 or 14 years okay from originally from Canada Canada all right okay and so like why why this street well I've had a lot of experience on the street in fact I've lived here for a long time as well and it's just right in the center of everything you have to Metra's you have one up in Taksim and then you have one down in cava touch which is near the bossless so it's an extremely convenient neighborhood and so you live down here yeah that's right and your ex-wife lives down here that's right I have a lot of friends on this street maybe a few enemies but not too many I hope I can still show my face around here so that's good okay all right so let's go it what's the so what are we gonna see how big price yeah we're gonna see an 85 square metre apartment with the bussers view nice balcony overlooking the Bosphorus we just finished doing the renovations or our company did the renovations for the seashell and you renovate also yeah we also do that as well cuz that seems like that might be a real pain in the tokus it is absolutely but I know how to delegate authority and somebody who don't know that credit work for me so 85 square meters inside that's right and the price is 11.35 million Turkish lira which is today about who knows it can be $7 that's right all right so let's let's head on in okay okay so we're just going up to the apartment that's on the second floor we're doing some work in the building still we have to finish the painting put it on the new door do some work on the rails and so here we are what year was this built this is building this building is a historical building actually so it's about a hundred years old and you can renovate everything inside but nothing on the facade exactly there are a little bit touchy about issues with the facade so so shouldn't give us the give us the two if I got new doors show us around okay this apartment was completely gutted it was changed everything in the flooring all the electric and water natural gas heating and tried to use mostly Turkish materials but we've used some Italian paint as well just to liven it up a little bit and yeah we're happy with the results is so is this is this done you're gonna say that that's the effect everything's done exactly that's the Italian paint here they like their chandeliers here that's right chandeliers yeah we like chandeliers these are Turkish made as well a lot of the almost all the products are Turkish made so we prefer to use Turkish products Turkey has become they've become really big and producing all kinds of stuff from refrigerators to at everything absolutely especially when it's related to construction materials and home finishing there's really a great array of Turkish product so it's nice to be able to go we go to one area in town and we can sort of do a one-stop shopping there and it's really convenient and we can also hey go about the prices that's a favorite pastime Turkish people and certainly I get into the action and we do a lot of haggling down there got a haggle come up with some good deals we put this story we're going to furnish the apartment fully in the next couple of weeks over 1 1 3 5 you get it that's right I'll furnish we're gonna put in really nice furnishings in here and in in that case if somebody wants to come in and they can let it out to tourists or a long-term rental in this neighborhood too popular to rent to foreigners foreigners like to live here that's where we put the bodies I mean this is like the black of that's so light well in the building so now not much not much there and I'll take into the living room into the view you can look around if you like in the washroom I'm not sure natural we use natural stones in there and here we've used Turkish Turkish inspired tiles as you can see in the kitchen and the washroom we'd use these so this is the living room with the kitchen these sort of open kitchens and they call it an American kitchen here I'm not sure why but it's open kitchen and here we have a nice about 8 square meter balcony with a fantastic view in the Bosphorus so this is a great place in the summer to hang out and really add something to the apartment I think a lot of people that live right in the city center really want a balcony with a view that's almost a must for a lot of a lot of expats and Turkish people as well so this I'm trying to understand the layout here so because you bet some open space this is this is a living area that's right so I live over here that's it I have my view that's right and and so there's I mean I met and this is kind of a Turkish finish that you've got the tiles which are nice yeah there's a lot of different textures and and glassblowing details down yeah and so who's the who's the buyer of this and the buyer of this I think would be a foreigner or Turkish client but it might also appeal to Arab is it an a user sorry is it an end-user I think it's maybe an investment property people will rent it out because it have a good rental income no that's what I see but a lot of people come to sample they might only stay for one month a year they come here regularly but they come for one month so they might want to stay during that time and then the rest of the year they rent it this could be your trifecta property you could do your your four months here your 4 months somewhere else your formal except this could be not just eliminating the other day yeah it's a great place to spend four months so let's talk about the numbers one point three five million Turkish lira as we sit here today is about two and a quarter yeah Wes D yeah approximately so you're just shy into citizenship so this property you need to buy something else that's definitely fine I'm not sure exactly the requirements for the citizenship but I believe it's 250 250 so that's another video yeah what what are the economics of this unit because you're saying good rental yield you're in this setting tell me what that is in Istanbul about six percent six seven percent of the annual gross that's right so I buy it for one point three five you're a bit negotiable the sellers have been negotiate and so how much would I save and if I'm coming to Istanbul how much should I expect to knock off anywhere between five and ten percent generally I mean there are other properties that are probably really overpriced where you might expect to get more but in general I would say five or ten so we get it into one and a quarter yeah so now we're at 205 210 grand us something like that and you're saying you make $12,000 a year $13,000 a year gross that's right okay but then we've got expenses yeah don't walk me through that well there's not too much in income tax on that you might lose about another thousand in income tax rental income it's like seven or eight percent as I recall yeah it's very low and that's your main one and after that there's no property taxes property taxes about 100 or $200 a year USD yeah nothing so nothing really and then there's there's there's water there's what what are the other bills well the tenants pay for those so the tenant always pays on top of the rep that's right so this is it's almost like the rent is basically go in your pocket - taxes exactly yeah that's it okay yeah so I guess the concern that people have is they say I'm gonna buy in Turkey you know what are the legal protections what do you tell people who are coming from let's say Canada or somewhere else in the West well in terms of legal protection I mean Turkey's got a very well-defined property law and all citizens from any country of the world have the same rights except for except for I was a good question I think maybe Palestine Armenians Armenia and maybe Canada I don't know diplomatic spat with Canada these days Canada Arabia Turkey so you you feel comfortable you're buying properties in this area oh yeah always have yeah in this situation this part of the world is often the neighbors yeah is buying in a building is that how do you factor that in a building like this like are the neighbors get a cooperate with you yeah I think in this neighborhood that's not really so much of a big issue it's pretty homogeneously the type of people that are living in this neighborhood so you're likely to get educated people they have reasonably good jobs and they all have the same vision of what should be done with this is a tonier crowd yeah that's that's right yeah and so I know that one of the things we talked about last time was there's a weird setup for square meters where you you own like part of the building that's right you can never rely on the the square meters that are on the title deed that's just a very roughly it's not livable yeah you have to get it and measure and measure the property yourself if you want that data so is this actually 85 square metres liveable including the balcony yes the balcony and so the balcony is what is this like a 8 square yeah okay so 77 plus 8 yeah 85 and that's livable but the title dude is more because don't you want part of the staircase and the elevator in this case the title deed says something like 96 oh that's okay so that's a big difference the huge sometimes is huge yeah I don't I don't rely on the title deed numbers at all because they they will include a garden that actually doesn't belong to you it belongs to the person on the bottom floors and the stairwell I don't it's it's dates back to an old system that they used for calculating the land the land area actually so if we let's just say when you go shoot this down to two hundred thousand US dollars for for four simple numbers eighty five meters you're right you know what 2,200 2,300 dollars a square meter if my public school math is correct yeah and so Chih hunger is this the most expensive area the second most expensive area in this the third oh no I would say that areas like ft lair Ryan tashi battery cache even or more expansion hunger joggers definitely in the top category but not at the very top it doesn't it's much less this area seems it's like like a local like a high-level locals livable not flashy but just a nice place with educated people fun but nothing too much on the radar maybe look outside it's almost like yeah just a normal cute neighborhood yeah it's understated it's always been the preferred choice of expats moving to Istanbul and that dates way back hundreds of years but it's also a preferred location for the Turkish artistic film community now people doing startups and in internet businesses and people like that so to start this is the startup hub of it this is the startup hub is it the hipster hub of history it's also the hipster hub it's cat capital as well this cans it every impact you can't you can you triple forget my cats this ain't your place so $2,300 a square meter and so if we look at five years ago in ten years ago where where was that because obviously I mean the concern people also have is the lira and has had some problems yeah but realistic here is denominated sometimes in lira sometimes in USD sometimes in lyrics sometimes USD whatever luxury properties tend to be in USD but most other properties are in Turkish lira so if we if we look in lira terms five years ago ten years ago what were we looking at in their terms the prices would have been much lower at that time but in currency terms they would have been similar to what they are today the properties in this area of generally held their value pretty well in lira terms in dollar terms as well because I mean what was they've gone up in lira terms for sure in 2000 it was 2.1 that's right I remember when it was 1.2 they were almost equal unbelievable so in let's say yes in 10 years you've seen what about a 70 percent devaluation that's right but do you think this property is tripled in value to where you haven't lost anything in dollar terms you've tripled your value in lira terms over that time probably yeah yeah yeah and you were able to buy properties in this neighborhood unrenovated of course maybe three four hundred thousand lira ten years ago yeah ten years and so what do you see them obviously nobody's a crystal ball and this is your business but I mean what I what I find interesting I know people have a number of concerns they look at macroeconomics they look at they look at policy to me you've got a city with as many people as Australia has that's right you've got demographics people reproduce people I moved to the capital well not the caliber this is not the capital Ankara but I mean like they move to the chief city this is the main this is the place to be this is basically the business capital this is the wealth capital I'm contested yeah so I mean where do we look in in the future I think that the last couple of years have been really difficult for the real-estate market but there's a lot of pent up demand now a lot of people have deferred their plans to buy apartments because there's been a lot of economic and political uncertainty I don't think that'll last forever I think that things will calm down hopefully in the near future I think that the lira is likely to stabilize so I don't want to go on a limb and too far and say that but it did go down it went up to seven last year and went about a year ago it's like catching a falling knife that's right yeah buddy then they raise the interest rates and which are now like a thousand and twenty two percent or something very high right good if you want to just take money in the bank and take a risk on the Turkish yeah forget Lori your dream let me talk about what it's like 20 what is it now in the bank 20 22 percent so you can write the 20 was a view sellers apartment you can take your 1.35 or whatever it is million lira and park it at 22 percent and hope for the best yeah we hope for the best so one of the things that I was you know seeing is the reason for this citizenship you know they came out they said okay there was never Turkish citizenship before that was rent you buy a property to get residents that's right and you had to live here and then they were bumping up you have to live here I think like 9 or 10 months a year they change that a while ago okay so now there's citizenship by investment you get it quickly it was a million dollars they were overpriced it nobody was nobody there yeah now it's a 250 and people are interested a lot of people are interested they're getting well we're getting a lot of people inquiring about that they're mainly Iranian citizens and citizens from the Middle East the Gulf countries Egypt which I've always contended was the market they were I mean this this is not a traditional citizenship by investment program where they were competing with some of the Caribbean programs that's someone like me interested yeah this was basically hey listen listen you Bahraini people like you were buying property you know you're not like all right we'll sweeten the pot right I mean that's not what it was basically I think so I mean it definitely appeals to countries throughout the Middle East because of the political uncertainty there as well a lot of people actually see Turkey as being a bit of safe haven in the region it was always the secular safe haven for for the Gulf countries yeah that's right so yeah I think it appeals to all the middle eastern countries plus also like countries like Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan which have sort of cultural connections with Turkey as well but I think Europeans might want to take advantage of it as well maybe not to such great numbers but definitely people are interested if not just for the curiosity of saying I'm Turkish Turkish would you want it I would I would take it yep would you take it yeah yeah why not I just had a couple of questions for ya yeah the main one was I was wondering what happens if you purchase the property here you get this citizenship and then you sell the property you know you can't revoke this you have to hold it for three years title deed restriction over three years okay you can't sell for three cents I think any investment in this temple you have to look at a five-year period can I can I get liquidity I mean it's like you're saying hold it for five years to get appreciation appreciation rental income you you escape the capital gains period as well five years five years zero capital gains tax yeah zero it's not a graduated system and of course that's all they were denominated that's right yeah so I think five years also it gives you inside that five years you can liquidate the property of course if you found a favorable time to do it if you brought in currency and you want to get out again and currency five years gives you a big enough window where you'd be able to you know exit at a suitable time the market here is not as liquid as you would find in the US or Canada it's not because there's less access to good mortgages so in that sense yeah it's less liquid and especially right now in mortgage rates are sky high that's right yeah so it causes a big slowdown in the market but eventually people do buy you get a lot of cash buyers people sort of cobbled together the money and their families and you know from their uncles and aunts and belli contributes and they buy properties in cash it always surprises me but they look at it as a very solid investment is this a price that someone can do cash probably a little bit above it but they're certainly wealthy people will come in and just lay down the cash yeah they won't go to a bank to purchase this property they'll just buy cash cash cash in hand yeah but it would be above the amount that you know the type of person who was cobbling together the money with their family would probably you know it seems the challenge to me is it's a bit above that and then it's a bit a bit below a citizenship number yeah because that's a bit difficult you can't just buy two properties anyway there's a lot of restrictions raised a whole nother video we thought about the citizenship issue but I just said I don't want to price it for the citizenship I want to price it where I feel weak and comfortable don't praise anyway so when it's worth yeah so these days of course you see a lot of properties actually being opportunistically priced it exactly two hundred and fifty thousand dollars well that's fine I mean I suppose there are ways that you could get around that where you know when it actually came to the the purchase the buyer would pay less in cash if it was a cash sale it could be organised that you put a certain amount on the title deed and the actual land would no we would never recommend that we would never recommend that of course not I'm sure people it's an interesting past part I guess I suppose the one challenge is if you're a family if I'm coming saying I want to have children I don't know if I want my children joining the Turkish military yeah I I don't I don't know if that's gonna be I don't think that that would be required with new Turkish citizens from my investment that I know we have yavana working in that on that very question yes because that is certainly a concern yeah nobody would want to of course yeah you can get out of the military requirement by paying a lump sum cash but of course people don't want to do that as well but I'm not sure if citizen people who become Turkish citizens through through property purchases would have to feel I was willing to do it just to bypass the immigration one Ataturk Airport but now the new airport is so easy so much easier I haven't I haven't you know there yeah you don't need that anymore just opened last month so I haven't had the opportunity I heard there were some growing pains but it looks like it would be a great airport so so you think I mean long term just to wrap up are you I mean you're in the business yep are you bullish on Istanbul in general absolutely yeah mid to long term not sure this is not a flip this is not a flip market at the moment at all and I don't recommend I always recommend minimum five years but don't a property in Istanbul I think it's a special thing I think it's a special City and I think it'll see better days I don't think that things are so bad right now there's a recession we're in the middle of the recession so we can't say they're so good either but I've seen days where things skyrocket here and I think it has that potential again it's kind of an alpha City so nothing nothing would surprise me first much as people want to talk about the all the issues and they've been plastered all over the news and in no daggett mean you have to take everything into account there are only so many mega global cities out there where you can body and at this price and it's not an Asian city either there's a lot of mega cities in Asia but this is a mega city you pay a lot more in in Europe and in the Middle East so there are not many cities that you can compare you can't compare Istanbul to Cairo for example I think they're on a totally different level or Dubai you can't compare to Dubai you can't compare it to Munich or something like that they're not they're apples and oranges really these samples in a class of its own in that in that sense of being a sort of mega city in this Geographic geographical location Keith's great to see your place yeah again hi I'm Andrew Henderson from Nomad capitalist I wrote this book which you can find on Amazon to distill a lot of the stuff we talked about in these videos and a lot of the stuff I've learned over the last decade plus traveling all around the world teaching you about how to legally reduce your taxes build your personal freedom and create wealth faster definitely get a copy of this book if you want to learn more now if you want to watch more videos make sure you subscribe to our Channel and make sure you click the notifications bell so you never miss one of our new videos with more tips on how to go where you're treated best and if you're already a six or seven figure entrepreneur and you'd like to put these strategies in place for yourself go to Nomad capitalist calm and learn about how I can help you

Channel: Nomad Capitalist

Views: 103,743

Rating: 4.8317461 out of 5

Keywords: nomad capitalist, nomad capitalist turkey, istanbul real estate, istanbul real estate for sale, istanbul property, istanbul property for sale, turkey real estate, turkey real estate market, investing in turkey real estate, investing in real estate, emerging real estate markets, emerging trends in real estate 2019, buying real estate in turkey, real estate in turkey for foreigners

Id: V67xzmGBtdE

Length: 24min 32sec (1472 seconds)

Published: Thu May 23 2019