Turkey's property sector has received a timely boost for 2018 after it was revealed more than 22,000 properties were sold to foreigners last year.
Official figures just released by the country's data unit TurkStat showed property sales to the foreign sector rose 22.2 percent year-on-year in 2017.
Where was most popular?
A total of 22,234 properties were bought by foreigners in 2017, with the most popular province being Istanbul, with 8,182 house sales.
The city's popularity is down to its infrastructure, culture and transportation, as well as the building of new and improved housing projects that continue to spring up in many diverse areas.
The Mediterranean holiday capital, Antalya - a haven for mainly Germans and Russians - was second with 4,707 sales. Bursa was third with 1,474 sales, and Yalova in fourth with 1,079 properties.
Underpinning this, December 2017's figure revealed 2,164 house sales, with Istanbul, Antalya and Bursa the top three destinations
Who bought them?
Most house sales in 2017 went to Iraq citizens. The top five nations were:
1) Iraq: 3,805 property sales;
2) Saudi Arabia: 3,345 sales;
3) Kuwait: 1,691 sales;
4) Russia: 1,331 sales,
5) Afghanistan: 1,078 sales.
December 2017's top three nations buying in Turkey was: Iraqis, Saudis and Kuwaitis.
Turkey's property scene: 2017
Overall, just over 1.4 million properties were sold across Turkey - a rise of 5.1 percent compared to 2016.
Istanbul saw the largest business with 238,383 homes changing hands - around 17 percent of all house sales for the year.
TurkStat said the capital Ankara and the Aegean province of Izmir racked up 150,561 (10.7 percent) and 84,184 (6 percent) of total housing sales, respectively. The least houses sold per province was Hakkari with just 124.
In Turkey, 473,099 of all sales were mortgaged sales and 936,215 were other house sales.
Some 838,000 houses or 59.4 percent were bought by men, and about 409,500 houses or 29.1 percent were bought by women, while over 29,000 houses or 2.1 percent were bought jointly by women and men.
