Selling Property to Foreigners in Turkey: Which Country, Which Channel

Foreign Investor Marketing, 10 min read. By Sefa Aydın

A real estate firm's plan for foreign buyers is often a single sentence: "Let's open an English page and target abroad." This approach spends your budget but does not produce sales, because there is no single audience called "foreign buyers". A Russian buyer and a German buyer do not use the same search engine, do not spend time on the same social network and are not persuaded by the same things.

In this article we first use TÜİK (Turkish Statistical Institute) data to see who is actually buying, then look at which channel works for each country one by one.

Data first: who is buying?

TÜİK Housing and Commercial Property Sales Statistics publish sales to foreigners monthly, broken down by country. Two recent months give the following picture.

Three conclusions follow from this table.

• Russia is first by a wide margin, and the gap to second place is more than double. This is where the weight of your foreign buyer budget should be.
• There is no Gulf country in the top five. Gulf capital is much discussed in Turkish real estate, but home sales statistics do not confirm it at the top of the ranking: Iraq is only fifth, with 66 homes.
• Germany is in fourth place. This market, which most firms never consider, buys more homes than the Gulf.

Volatility matters too: in May 2026 sales to foreigners fell 27 percent compared with the same month last year, while in June they rose 20.1 percent. The January to June 2026 total of 9,083 homes is 9.2 percent lower than the same period last year. In other words, the market is narrow and volatile, and a firm that relies on random inbound demand is the first to drop out.

Russia: a separate digital world

Russia is both the largest market and the most different one in terms of channels. The Google-centered reflexes you use in Turkey do not work here. In April 2026 measurements, Yandex handles roughly 70 percent of searches in Russia. In Statcounter data this rises to 72.37 percent, while Google stays at 26.17 percent.

On the social side, the DataReportal Digital 2026 report shows 136 million internet users in the country (94.4 percent penetration) and 106 million social media user identities (73.7 percent). VK is first with 92.5 million monthly active users, TikTok reaches 66.7 million among users aged 18 and over, and X is practically irrelevant with 464 thousand.

We covered the channel setup for this market in detail, including Telegram and the unit economics calculation, in a separate article.

Iran: searches exist, payment is hard

Iran consistently ranks second or third. For this buyer, what is decisive is not the marketing but the process itself. Restrictions on payment and transfers are the area where buyers ask the most questions and hesitate the most.

• Persian content is a serious differentiator, because most competitors produce nothing in this language.
• Content that clearly explains how the payment process works within the legal framework generates more leads than advertising.
• Referrals and community influence are strong in this audience, and one satisfied buyer brings several more.

Ukraine: Russian content covers both

Ukrainian citizens are in the top three. Their channel behavior differs from Russia, and Google and Meta are strong here. On the language side, however, a significant share of Russian content also reaches this audience. So your investment in Russian works in two markets at once, but targeting and messaging must be set up separately. Merging the two audiences in a single campaign is also a mistake from a communication standpoint.

Germany: the overlooked fourth

In May 2026 Germany ranked fourth with 73 homes. This is a market where most firms have never run a campaign. The advantage is that Google dominates in Germany, so the tools and reflexes you know from Turkey apply here. The difference lies in language and expectations.

• German content and a German-speaking advisor are essential. English is not considered enough.
• German buyers value process transparency more than other markets, and an unclear price or a vague timeline is a direct reason to rule you out.
• A buyer of Turkish origin living in Germany and a native German investor are not the same person and cannot be targeted with the same message.

Iraq and the Gulf: setting the right expectations

Iraq ranks fifth. Gulf countries, on the other hand, do not appear near the top of the home sales ranking. This does not mean Gulf capital is not interested in Turkey, it means the interest is concentrated in commercial real estate, hotels and large-scale investment.

The practical conclusion is this: for a firm marketing a residential project, making the Gulf the main target is not supported by the data. For a firm with a commercial portfolio or a large-scale investment opportunity, however, Arabic content and a regional network make sense. Launching an Arabic campaign without making this distinction means buying the most expensive clicks from the audience with the lowest intent.

Channel summary

Where to start

With a limited budget, the most sensible order is this: first a narrow and deep setup in the largest market according to the data (Russia), with real localization. Once this channel starts producing qualified conversations, you move to the second market. A shallow structure launched in five languages at once cannot compete in any of them.

We covered the technical side of a multilingual structure, including hreflang and URL setup, in a separate article. For how to manage incoming inquiries, see our article on foreign buyer lead management.

The first step of a foreign buyer campaign is not setting up ads but choosing, with data, who you will sell to. A perfect campaign built for the wrong country can never beat an average campaign built for the right one.

If you want to plan together which market to enter and in what order, talk to Rebel Co. Group. Related services: real estate sales marketing to foreign buyers and real estate marketing agency.

Data sources: TÜİK Housing and Commercial Property Sales Statistics, May 2026 and June 2026, DataReportal Digital 2026 Russia report, Statcounter search engine market share, April 2026.

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