Buying a Home in Türkiye
611 properties, $150K to $50M, and what owning one is actually like. This page is not about the transaction — for that see the buying process — it is about the year after it: residency, utilities, coming and going, and the things that surprise people who bought a home in a country they had only holidayed in.
Owning is not the same as living here
Buying property gives you a deed, not a right to live in the country. Visitors from most countries can stay for a limited period on the visa-free or e-visa arrangement, and staying longer means a residence permit — which property ownership supports an application for, but does not grant automatically. This is the single most common misunderstanding we correct.
The $400,000 citizenship route is the exception and a genuinely different thing: it leads to a passport rather than a permit, has no residency requirement before or after, and covers a spouse and children under 18. If living here full-time is the actual goal, that route deserves to be part of the plan from the beginning rather than a discovery three years in.
The practical year
Utilities transfer into your name at purchase and need a Turkish bank account and tax number to run smoothly. A managed site handles its own grounds, security and often the winter closing; a standalone house does not, and finding a reliable caretaker is the single best investment an absentee owner makes. Annual property tax is declared and paid locally, and earthquake insurance is compulsory rather than optional.
Coastal owners underestimate winter and city owners underestimate summer. A coastal house closed from November needs draining and checking; an Istanbul apartment needs cooling from June. Neither is difficult, both need someone, and "someone" is the item most buyers have not budgeted for by the time they get the keys.
What we do after the deed
Utility transfers, the tax number and bank account, the annual declaration, finding a caretaker or a property manager, and the seasonal opening and closing. We keep offices in Istanbul, Bodrum, Dubai and Miami, and it is the reason the answer to "can you help with…" is generally yes rather than the name of a third party.
It is also why we would rather sell you the right property than the nearest one. Our advisors deal with the same owners years later, and a house that was wrong for them is a conversation we have repeatedly. See how we work.