Turkey sees 82,252 house sales in May

Turkey saw 82,252 house sales in May with a 31.3% annual decline, the country's statistical office reported Monday. "Istanbul had the highest share of house sales with 19.3% and 15,895 houses sold," TurkStat said. The capital Ankara and the Mediterranean resort city of Antalya followed Istanbul with 8,240 and 5,091 house sales, respectively. The institute noted that 33,765 houses across the country were sold for the first time while the rest were second-hand sales last month. The mortgaged house sales amounted to 5,231 -- going down 85.8% year-on-year -- with a 6.4% share of all sales in May. Last year, over 1.37 million property sales were recorded in Turkey while around 650,000 of them were newly-built houses.