Criticism accompanies growth in Turkish real estate sector

The Turkish property development sector has recovered from the global financial recession and started attracting foreign investors again, according to the chairman of the Turkish Real Estate Platform, or GYODER.

The construction sector in Turkey started rising again in 2010, said Işık Gökkaya, the head of GYODER, in remarks Wednesday at the two-day ArkiPARC event organized by the Arkitera Architecture Center.

"The economic enlivenment, increase in consumer trust and banks’ appetite to distribute low-interest loans has caused a boost in the real estate sector," he said.

Foreign direct investments in the construction sector stood at $1.78 billion in 2009. The figure rose to $2.5 billion last year, Gökkaya said. "The real estate sector attracted $13 billion in foreign direct investments between 2006 and 2010," he said.

Gökkaya called on the government to ease the ownership conditions for the foreigners.

The total volume of mortgages in Turkey was 60 billion Turkish Liras in 2010. According to Gökkaya, this increased to 64 billion liras in 2011 by the end of March.

"The establishment of secondary markets will broaden the base for real estate credits and increase the number of family holds using them," he said.

Another issue to develop the sector was urban transformation projects, he said. "This is crucial particularly in a metropolis like Istanbul that is under the threat of an earthquake."

All possible contributors should concentrate on urban transformation, said Arkitera General Manager Ömer Yılmaz at the event. "Intellectual labor should be used to the end," he said.


Speaking on cluster houses, Cem İlhan of TeCe Arcitecture in Istanbul said the field was widely confused with social housing.

Social housing is a state responsibility to fill in the gaps of the private sector, İlhan said at a meeting during the event.

Criticizing the vast projects of TOKİ, the state-run property developer, he said: "Social housing projects are acting under motives of the private sector. They care about profits."

TOKİ lacks no land or capital inflows and it is the "law maker" in the sector, he said, calling the country’s largest construction company to focus on social projects only.

"We should start thinking about what kind of city we will leave behind when this number of residences is finished," he said.

There are no fine examples of social housing projects in the country, the architect added.

The main reason that keeps the public sector from building social housing projects is the lack of planning on population and migration, according to Rahmi Uysalkan of Uysalkan Architecture.

The speculative rise in land prices is forcing both the private and public sectors to act under profit motives, Uysalkan said.

TOKİ is building low-quality buildings in very short periods of time, he said, adding that any TOKİ attempts to construct buildings on the few remaining pieces of land in big cities such as Istanbul, İzmit or Bursa would trigger price speculations.

Agreeing with Uysalkan, Celal Abdi Güzer, an academic from Ankara’s Middle East Technical University, or ODTÜ, said, "Shanty houses [in big cities] used to line up horizontally, today they are in vertical form."


/Hurriyet Daily News/