Mehmet Simsek, Turkey's deputy prime minister for the economy, excited the Turkish media with his May 12 statement: “We will grant residence permits, work permits to those who come from abroad and buy a residence above a certain level. Turkey has a capital deficit.”

Hurriyet ran the statement under the headline “Residence and work permits for foreigners buying houses.” But Turkey has already been issuing residence permits to house buyers since 2013. Residence that was initially granted for three months was extended to one year in 2013.

Moreover, there is no real stipulation for the size and price of the residence to receive a residence permit. Mujdat Guler, chairman of the board of Nova Holding, stated in a Bloomberg HT interview that anyone buying a residence worth $50,000 received the right to apply first for residency and then for citizenship after eight years, but even those in the real estate sector were not aware of the opportunity.

What was new in Simsek’s statement was the granting of work permits. This permission is seen as a major incentive to increase the demand for housing from the Middle East. Today, many foreigners, led by the British and Russians, own houses in Turkey. In recent days, the most active buyers of Turkish real estate have been from Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Qatar, Libya, Palestine, Syria and Iraq.