Real Estate Turkey to provide cheaper home loans for mid-income citizens By Reuters January 5, 2023, 5:26 AM Unsplash.com The loans with favourable rates will be extended to new housing, before, during or after construction Mortgages with lower rates and longer maturities will be offered to middle income Turks looking to buy new housing, Turkish finance minister Nureddin Nebati said on Wednesday. Nebati told a news conference the mortgage loans up to 5 million lira ($266,823), will have up to 15 years maturity and rates will start from 0.69 percent. “We prepared ‘my new home program’ for middle income citizens with advantageous rates, three-year finance ministry support in payments and a household income-based payment plan,” Nebati said. The loans with favourable rates will be extended to new housing, before, during or after construction, Nebati added. Contractors that promise to build housing will also have credit guarantee fund-backed access to financing of some 25 billion Turkish lira, Nebati added. Ahead of tight elections for President Tayyip Erdogan in mid-2023, the government has pressed on with a policy of fiscal and monetary stimulus including wage hikes, retirement benefits, social aid, energy and agriculture support. Turkish home sales fell 34.1 percent year-on-year in November to 117,806 houses, with sales to foreigners dropping 17.4 percent, data from the Turkish Statistical Institute showed. Some 13,000 people in Turkey’s southern Antalya province signed a petition in November, seeking a ban on foreigners in the real estate market over soaring house prices and rents. The data also showed November mortgaged sales declined 57.7 percent from a year earlier to 16,655 houses, accounting for 14.1. percent of the total sales in the period.