Economy
Türkiye house sales hit year-to-date peak as mortgaged purchases surge
Home sales in Türkiye neared 130,000 units, driven by a sharp rise in mortgage-backed purchases, registering their strongest monthly performance of 2026 and the highest June figure in four years, official data showed on Friday.
According to the Turkish Statistical Institute (TurkStat), total house sales rose almost 16% year-over-year last month to 129,979 units.
Sales of newly built homes climbed 23.1% to 43,406 units, while secondhand home sales rose 12.5% to 86,573 units.
Mortgaged home sales surged 72.1% year-over-year to 25,993 units, accounting for 20% of all transactions and reflecting stronger demand despite elevated borrowing costs.
However, cumulative home sales in the first six months of the year fell 3.1% from the same period of 2025 to 699,516 units. Mortgaged sales increased 32.2% to 142,794.
Separate data from the central bank on Friday showed Türkiye’s nationwide house price index rose 24.5% annually in June, below consumer inflation of just above 32%, indicating a continued decline in real house prices.
Sales to foreign buyers rose 20.1% year-over-year in June to 2,015. They declined 9.2% in the first half of the year to 9,083.
Robust demand
Industry representatives said the June rebound reflected resilient housing demand, although they cautioned that financing conditions remain a key constraint.
“The strongest June performance in the last four years shows that demand for housing remains robust,” said Ziya Yılmaz, chair of the Housing Developers and Investors Association (KONUTDER).
He said some transactions delayed by the Eid al-Adha holiday in May were completed in June, contributing to the strong monthly figures.
Yılmaz also said the increase in firsthand home sales signaled improving demand for new housing, although such sales still accounted for around one-third of the market, well below levels seen before 2020.
He added that the sharp rise in mortgaged sales demonstrated that underlying housing demand and postponed purchases remained strong despite high mortgage rates.
Mustafa Kemal Şahin, head of the Real Estate Marketing and Sales Professionals Association (GAPAS), said the June figures suggested postponed demand was gradually returning to the market.
“The increase in firsthand sales is particularly encouraging because it points to renewed confidence in new housing projects and stronger sales performance by developers,” he said.
Şahin added that high interest rates and limited access to financing weighed on the first-half performance, but described June’s figures as an important sign of market normalization.
Sector representatives said a more sustained recovery would depend on easier access to financing, lower mortgage rates and policies supporting new housing supply, particularly for first-time homebuyers.
Developers also noted that installment plans and interest-free financing offered directly by construction companies have become an increasingly important alternative to bank mortgages.
Home prices extend real decline
Last month, the Central Bank of the Republic of Türkiye (CBRT) held its one-week repo rate steady at 37% for a third consecutive meeting as it monitored the impact of the Iran war.
Supply shocks mainly due to the fallout from the conflict had pushed Türkiye’s headline inflation higher in April and May, but June signaled the return of a downward trend.
The annual inflation eased to 32.1% last month from 32.6% in May. On a monthly basis, consumer prices rose 0.99% in June, slowing from 1.7% in May.
Since the conflict started, the CBRT has halted an easing cycle that began in late 2024 and taken other liquidity steps that pushed the Turkish lira overnight rate up to the 40% limit.
The CBRT raised its end-2026 inflation forecast to 24% from 16% in its quarterly inflation report published in mid-May, saying the short-term inflationary effects of the Iran war would remain “pronounced.” The bank projects inflation falling to 15% at the end of 2027 and 9% at the end of 2028.
Data from the bank on Friday showed the Residential Property Price Index (RPPI) rose nearly 2% month-over-month in June and was up 24.5% from a year earlier in nominal terms.
Adjusted for inflation, however, house prices fell 5.8% year-over-year, marking the seventh consecutive monthly real decline.
After recording a 1.4% annual real increase in January 2024, house prices slipped back into negative territory in February of that year and have remained below inflation ever since, except for a marginal 0.3% real increase in November 2025.
The pace of real declines has accelerated in recent months, widening from 1.4% in December to 6.1% in May. The annual real decrease stood at 2.3% in January, 3.9% in February, 3.4% in March and 4.3% in April.
Kryvyi Rih, the hometown of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, is struggling to survive. Russian airstrikes have brought the city’s huge steel plant and mines to a standstill, dragging the local economy to its knees.
Mayor Oleksandr Vilkul said the sprawling industrial city – which stretches along the banks of the Inhulets River – was doing everything possible to ensure its hospitals remain open, the lights remain on in kindergartens and schools, and buses keep running.
“In Kryvyi Rih, the situation is actually worse than anywhere else, apart from the front line itself,” Vilkul, 52, a former mining executive, said in a video address.
The financial squeeze on the city of about 600,000 people underlines the challenges facing Ukraine as the government navigates its biggest budget crisis since Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022.
Last month, the city’s largest employer – ArcelorMittal’s hulking mining and steelmaking complex – suspended its operations following a series of Russian ballistic missile strikes that darkened its furnaces.
The prospects for next year, Vilkul said, are bleak.
“It’s about survival. Right now, we need to survive,” he said.
It’s a scene played out across Ukraine’s once-mighty steel industry, which accounted for a tenth of economic output before the war. Giant mills in Zaporizhzhia in the southeast and other industrial cities stand silent and exports have stopped.
An escalation in Russia’s drone and missile strikes this summer destroyed factories and warehouses across Ukraine, damaged ports and railways, and forced shops and businesses to close, slowing the growth of the economy and tax revenue.
Meanwhile, the technology-driven war is becoming ever more expensive for Ukraine to fight.
Billions of euros in foreign loans have been delayed by failure to pass bills including unpopular tax reforms and anti-corruption legislation demanded by Ukraine’s Western allies, leaving a gaping hole in state coffers.
Ukraine needs $56 billion to fund that gap this year – equivalent to about a quarter of its economic output. Of that, $27 billion is military spending.
To bridge the shortfall, Ukrainian officials met European partners in Brussels last week to discuss bringing forward disbursements due next year under a 90-billion-euro ($101-billion) EU loan. The European Commission and Ukraine said they had identified funds to close the gap this year.
But three sources familiar with the talks said accelerating these payments risked increasing budget pressure next year – at a time when looming election campaigns in European allies including France and Poland could erode support for Kyiv.
Prime Minister Sergii Koretskyi acknowledges the situation is “challenging.” The government has been forced to freeze nonessential spending – including reconstruction of damaged buildings and infrastructure – to prioritize military spending, public sector wages and pensions.
“All resources should be channeled into critically important areas,” Koretskyi told reporters.
War costs soar, domestic revenues fall
Two years ago, a single day of fighting cost Ukraine $140 million, but that figure has jumped to $190 million, according to Roksolana Pidlasa, the head of parliament’s budget committee. And that does not include direct military support to Kyiv from its Western allies.
Rising costs are driven partly by the need for expensive medium- and long-range weapons capable of striking Russia’s oil refineries and military factories to reduce Moscow’s ability to continue its war.
Plus, the wage bill for an expanded army is higher than ever before, and the state must support a growing number of military families of disabled or deceased soldiers.
“Expenditure will continue to rise,” Pidlasa told a conference in Kyiv. “This is one more pragmatic reason why the U.S. and Europe need to act faster to force (Russia) to end this war.”
In the first nine months of this year, Ukraine spent more than $44 billion on defense alone, data showed. That does not include in-kind military support from allies.
In the same period, the government was able to raise only about $42 billion in tax revenue as the economy slowed.
Pidlasa said that in the first nine months of this year, Ukraine’s budget lost over 49.5 billion hryvnias ($1.1 billion) in tax revenue because of Russian attacks that not only damaged property and goods, but disrupted logistics and shut shops and businesses for hours at a time.
By the end of the year, the cumulative losses could rise to 70 billion hryvnias, the government estimates.
“We have not a temporary but a structural problem with the revenues at the very time when spending really requires resources,” said Oleksandra Myronenko, an economist at the Center for Economic Strategies, a Kyiv-based think tank.
Some Ukrainian businesses have started to scale back operations. Others have put capital expenditure on hold as the country braces for a difficult winter. Business sentiment and economic expectations are darkening.
Vasyl Khmelnytskyi, founder of an industrial park in the city of Bila Tserkva near Kyiv, said he had scrapped plans to build three new factories.
“The risks are simply too great right now – both for the business and for the people,” he said in a Facebook post.
Ukraine’s agricultural sector – its largest source of export revenues – has been particularly hard hit. Russian attacks on Ukraine’s Black Sea ports led to a 36.6% fall in grain exports year-over-year in September.
About $40 billion in export revenue is at risk this year as a result of the blockade, Economy Minister Oleksandr Kravchenko said.
Even with tens of billions of euros in foreign support, Ukraine’s economy is expected to grow only between 0.5% and 1.5% this year, economists say – down from 1.8% in 2025.
Foreign aid is delayed
During more than four years of intense fighting, Ukraine has been able to maintain macroeconomic and financial stability thanks to fiscal support from its Western partners, receiving nearly $200 billion since Russia’s invasion.
But $29.5 billion in foreign aid is now at risk this year because of delays in passing reforms, Koretskyi said. The government has postponed about $900 million of capital spending until December, in the hope the legislation will be passed.
The aim is to pass all the required legislation in parliament by Oct. 15, Koretskyi said.
“Only then we will get all the money,” Koretskyi said. “This is absolutely vital. It needs to be done as soon as possible.”
Legislators are now discussing the budget for next year. The government has proposed record defense budget spending of $110 billion. This figure does not include direct military aid.
Finance Minister Sergii Marchenko has estimated that the unfunded budget gap for the next year is already more than $32 billion.
Part of the solution, Marchenko said, is to use frozen Russian assets in Europe to fund Ukraine’s budget. EU countries immobilized some 210 billion euros of Russian central bank assets after Moscow invaded Ukraine.
“Ukraine continues to mobilize domestic resources, but the scale of Russia’s war puts clear limits on our capacity,” Marchenko said on the social media platform X.
Oil exports from the Middle East surpassed pre-war volumes for about half of September, shipping data showed Monday, though attacks on tankers and logistical constraints cloud the outlook for sustained higher flows.
Ships transiting the Strait of Hormuz face a “heightened and increasingly unpredictable kinetic threat” given the recent sharp increase in traffic, Marisks, a shipping intelligence service, said Saturday.
The seven-day moving average for crude exports from the region was 18.3 million barrels per day on Sept. 30, provisional Kpler data showed, with cargoes topping pre-war levels on 14 days in September.
That included Gulf oil sent through Hormuz, via the Red Sea, and from terminals and ship-to-ship transfers in the Gulf of Oman.
Shipments had earlier matched or exceeded pre-war levels on a handful of days in June and July, Kpler data showed, after Washington and Tehran reached a memorandum of understanding that has since lapsed.
“Forty percent now bypass Hormuz, and most crude crossing the strait changes tankers offshore,” Kpler said, adding that most of the oil flowed through Saudi and United Arab Emirates (UAE) pipelines.
These figures include flows via the Red Sea, a route increasingly used to bypass the blockade Iran is attempting to impose on Hormuz – where around a fifth of the world’s petroleum supplies crossed before the conflict.
Iran still claims control over the strait, and ships without its authorization risk coming under attack, but more and more are making it out, and alternative routes meant to bypass the waterway are operating at full capacity.
Saudi Arabia drives surge
Crude exports from the region averaged about 18 million bpd in the 12 months before the start of the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran, according to Kpler.
The recent export surge has been driven by Saudi Arabia loading from both the Red Sea and the Gulf, three weeks after a Sept. 10 attack on its East-West pipeline, Kpler said.
It has required more supertankers to shuttle crude through Hormuz, trade sources and analysts have said, adding that ship-to-ship transfers in the Gulf of Oman have reached their limits.
Iraq’s state-owned Oil Tanker Company and some refiners have chartered tankers to load Basrah crude inside the strait after Baghdad secured Iranian permission for Iraqi oil tankers to pass through Hormuz.
Shipping data provider Vortexa also said Gulf flows have recovered. It said that the 14-day moving average for Middle East crude and condensate exports hit 18.6 million bpd, exceeding the 10-year seasonal average and returning to pre-conflict levels.
“Most of this month-over-month increase seen in September comes from Saudi Arabia, which is ramping up exports to regain market share from other Middle Eastern countries,” senior market analyst Xavier Tang said.
“This increase in Middle East supplies will also help alleviate tightness in the oil market, especially for Asian refiners,” he said.
Liquefied natural gas cargoes exiting the Strait of Hormuz also rose in September to their highest since February.
Ship attacks
However, attacks on tankers continued, with at least seven incidents reported in the past week, Marisks said.
The very large crude carrier (VLCC) Kazimah III was reportedly struck on Oct. 1 by an unknown projectile while in the strait, causing a fire onboard, it added. Its owner, Kuwait Oil Tanker Company, did not respond to a request for comment.
Separately, the Liberian-flagged Aframax tanker Lipsi was reportedly struck by an unknown projectile on Oct. 4 while transiting approximately 3.9 nautical miles northeast of Jazirat Um Al Fayarin, Oman, in the Strait of Hormuz, damaging its engine room, Marisks said Monday. Dynacom, its manager, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The crew aboard both tankers were reported safe, with no casualties reported, Marisks said.
The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations agency has reported at least one attack a day in the Strait of Hormuz or the Gulf of Aden since Oct. 2.
“Current intelligence suggests that the recent pattern of incidents may not necessarily represent deliberate targeting of individually selected merchant vessels,” Marisks said.
“Instead, available information indicates the possibility that Iranian forces are launching missiles into a predetermined engagement area or ‘kill box,’ with weapons potentially acquiring and locking onto available radar signatures within that area.”
Before the Iran war started on Feb. 28, the strait typically handled about 125 large commercial vessels per day, including tankers, gas carriers, bulkers and container vessels, accounting for some 20% of global crude and LNG supply.
Türkiye’s third-biggest state-owned bank has begun an investor roadshow for a secondary share sale, its top executive said Monday, moving forward despite turmoil in the local investment fund market amid strong investor interest.
Halkbank General Manager Süleyman Özdil said he did not expect the crisis to have a negative impact on the offering, adding that the lender had met with nearly 60 investors in Abu Dhabi, Dubai, London and New York and seen strong interest.
“There is no change to the planned share offering. We will launch at the earliest opportunity, subject to market conditions,” Özdil told an interview with Reuters. He did not comment on the possible size of the offering or exact dates.
Halkbank said in August that it had applied to Türkiye’s Capital Markets Board (SPK) for a secondary public offering raising its nominal capital by TL 1.8 billion to TL 9 billion, two months after the dismissal of a U.S. case launched in 2019 alleging it had evaded sanctions on Iran.
Halkbank said after the dismissal that it expected its position in international markets to strengthen and its access to overseas funding to improve.
At current market prices, Halkbank’s planned offering would raise around $1.7 billion, according to Reuters calculations.
No impact expected from fund turmoil
Asked whether investors were concerned about the fund crisis, he said investors believed the market would emerge healthier from the turmoil.
“They think the banking sector is healthy and valuations are cheap. They see the banking sector as the first place to look for investors seeking exposure to Türkiye,” he said.
Türkiye’s main share index entered a bear market and posted its worst monthly performance since 2008 in September after a sell-off that was triggered by the fund turmoil.
Regulators last month ordered the liquidation of 131 investment funds managed by seven asset managers following warnings by some that they could not meet redemption payments.
Authorities have widened their investigation into suspected market manipulation in stocks and fund markets.
Halkbank’s IPO in 2012, raising around $2.5 billion, is still the biggest public offering in Türkiye.
The Türkiye Wealth Fund owns 91.5% of Halkbank, which has paid-in capital of TL 7.18 billion. The remaining 8.5% is publicly traded.
The benefits of artificial intelligence justify accepting some risks, OpenAI Chief Executive Sam Altman said, arguing the technology should remain broadly accessible to the public.
“We believe that the world should accept some bad things happening for the benefits of this technology and people having the agency,” Altman said in an interview with Politico’s technology-focused newsletter Decoded.
Altman said a fundamental difference in worldview remained between OpenAI and rival Anthropic on AI regulation, adding: “I think there’s a lot of daylight.”
“I disagree, but I understand the perspective of people who are like, ‘This technology is going to get so powerful, and it’s so dangerous, that a single lab in San Francisco should have it and make sure nothing bad happens, and kind of figure out how to dole out the benefits,'” Altman said.
He called that “a completely unacceptable trade-off” that runs counter to the “lighter-touch regulatory stance” backed by OpenAI.
“I wouldn’t take a trade of saying, ‘We’ll make sure there’s no major hacks, there’s no misuse of this technology, there’s zero scams, there’s zero all the other bad things that will happen,'” Altman said. “Because I think people will do tremendously – orders of magnitude more – good stuff than bad stuff.”
Altman’s remarks come amid a growing debate within the AI industry over the pace of development and the risks posed by increasingly capable systems.
Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei in September published an essay calling on the industry to slow down to “pace the frontier,” a stance that Altman publicly endorsed. Anthropic researcher Jacob Coxon resigned in September, saying the people building AI believe it “could kill us all by the end of the decade.”
Reuters reported in September that Anthropic warned that, despite AI’s potential benefits, the technology can sometimes act in ways that run counter to its makers’ intentions and penetrate other companies’ systems.
The company said advanced models could exhibit “self-preserving behaviors,” including attempts to “resist shutdown,” “conceal or manipulate information,” or generate outputs that could be interpreted as “coercive, deceptive, or manipulative.”
However, U.S. President Donald Trump has largely dismissed calls for new restrictions, arguing they would make it harder for American companies to compete with Chinese rivals. He has repeatedly said existing law enforcement agencies, including the Justice Department, provide sufficient safeguards and that no new rules are needed.
Türkiye’s annual inflation eased more than expected to 29.73% in September from 31.51% in August, official data showed Monday.
That marked the fourth consecutive month of decline. Inflation was last below 30% in November 2021.
On a monthly basis, the consumer price index (CPI) stood at 1.84%, according to the official data released by the Turkish Statistical Institute (TurkStat).
Food and non-alcoholic beverage prices, one of the largest components of the consumer price index, fell 0.20% from the previous month. Transportation prices increased 2.79%, while housing, water, electricity, gas and other fuel costs rose 2.71%.
Transportation contributed 0.49 percentage points to monthly inflation and housing added 0.33 percentage points. Food prices reduced the monthly reading by 0.05 percentage points.
On an annual basis, food and non-alcoholic beverage prices rose 27.62%, transportation costs increased 35.10% and housing prices climbed 39.99%.
These groups contributed 6.73, 5.96 and 4.84 percentage points, respectively, to annual inflation.
The core C index, which excludes energy, food and non-alcoholic beverages, alcoholic beverages, tobacco and gold, increased 28.70% annually and 2.14% monthly.
The B index, which excludes unprocessed food, energy, alcoholic beverages, tobacco and gold, rose 29% annually and 2.01% month-over-month.
Of the 174 expenditure subclasses tracked by TurkStat, prices increased in 133, declined in 35 and remained unchanged in six.
The ACE BPSC 2026 summit, a major business gathering hosted by the TABA-AmCham association, will be held in Istanbul this week, organizers said.
Held under the auspices of the Trade Ministry and hosted by the Turkish-American Business Association (TABA-AmCham), the ACE BPSC 2026 Summit is set to bring together 70 AmCham leaders from 30 countries and 250 global CEOs in Istanbul from Oct. 7-9, with the aim of shaping the new direction of global trade.
At a time when the balance of global trade is undergoing significant transformation, Istanbul will become a meeting point for leading representatives of the international business community.
Under the vision of “Entrepreneurship for Innovation, Investment, Technology and Trade: Building a Stronger Transatlantic Future,” the summit will provide a major platform for shaping the global economy.
The “AmCham Leadership & Gala Dinner,” to be held on Oct. 7, the first day of the event, will bring together senior government officials and global business leaders.
The opening remarks of the exclusive gala dinner are expected to be delivered by Trade Minister Ömer Bolat, Industry and Technology Minister Mehmet Fatih Kacır, Istanbul Governor Davut Gül, Ajsa Vodnik, the chair of AmChams in Europe (ACE), and Süleyman Ecevit Sanlı, the president of TABA-AmCham.
One of the summit’s most critical sessions will take place on Oct. 8 under the title “Commercial and Political Developments Following the NATO Summit.”
The panel will begin with opening remarks by H. Eren Derinkök, vice president of TABA-AmCham, and will be moderated by Bekir Polat, vice president of the Investment and Finance Office.
During this strategic session, Mustafa Tuzcu, deputy trade minister, H. Ali Özel, deputy foreign minister, and Demet Sabancı Çetindoğan, vice chair of the board of DEMSA, will assess regional and global developments in the new era from the perspective of the business community.
The summit’s closing program, “Creative Network Awards & Bosphorus Closing,” will take place on Oct. 9, the final day of the event.
Bringing together 70 AmCham leaders from 30 countries and 250 global CEOs, ACE BPSC 2026 is expected to further strengthen the foundations for new business partnerships extending from Istanbul to the world.
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