National Press Loving Turkish Property, Testament to Potential

The UK national press started covering overseas property again from about the middle of last year. Since then -- it may just be that I am biased because I like the market -- I have noticed that Turkey seems to be attracting more of their attention.

Just a few weeks ago the Daily Mail published an article painting Antalya as the next Algarve, and now the Telegraph has run a glowing article on Istanbul.

The Daily Mail article came in response to reports that Belek is the fastest growing golf tourism destination in Europe, and the fact that Easyjet has launched new flights to Antalya.

The Istanbul piece tells of an apartment in the historic district of Galata bought by Elisabeth Kendall 10 years ago for £16,000, which is now worth around £130,000. For those counting it out that is a growth of 800% in ten years. She said:

"I found my place -- a two-bedroom, 105sq m apartment, for £16,000 -- through a kebab seller who set up a property business. Being in the historical centre, I knew it would go up; it's now worth about £130,000," says Kendall, who says the area, back then, had mud streets and no lighting.

"Now Galata is very chichi with lots of boutiques and café's, proper taxi ranks and a metro stop. Lots of foreigners have bought properties there, including a few Brits, and I love going out there every six weeks,"

The reasons why the national press stopped covering overseas property is a: because people stopped wanting to read about it, and b: because they wanted people to forget how wrong so many articles had been when predicting growth - mostly the former. So now the journalists are being much more careful about what markets they cover, and what they say, so such glowing praise for Turkey is a huge testament to its potential.

Julian Walker, director of UK based Turkish property agent Spot Blue said:

"Yeah, for sure we have noticed a massive upturn in press coverage for Turkey of late, especially in the last 6 months. During this time we have been quoted in several of the UK nationals, and the Turkish newspaper Hurriyet."

Spot Blue is currently marketing property in Turkey from as little as £25,000.

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