Izmir. Districts. Prices.
Budja (Buca)
Let's start with this difficult district of Izmir. This is a very large district with very big transport difficulties, there is no metro yet, and the roads are small, there are no wide avenues, and there are huge traffic problems. There are also areas with a very low standard of living, poor infrastructure, but also quite good residential area. In general, Budja (Buca) is a place of small, inexpensive apartments designed for rent by students, because there are several big Universities.
Unfortunately, in recent years, cases of deception have become more frequent, which is put on a grand scale. Well-known real estate websites have incredibly attractive ads for the sale of apartments at insanely low prices. If you do a search in Izmir and sort ads by cost, most likely these ads will come out ahead. Pictures of interiors are full of modern furnishings, beautiful new appliances. The renovation is bright and stylish and an inexperienced buyer can easily fall for the bait. Unfortunately, in Izmir Budja, as in a separate state, a whole infrastructure is in operation to deceive real estate buyers.
What kind of apartments are these for 400,000, 450,000 and 500,000 liras ? (price example for summer 2023)
A lawyer friend of my and I, disguised as buyers, went to one of these agencies and asked to show us several of these apartments. The apartments really looked very attractive. Inside. Outside, we found several gypsy camps, refugee tent camps and no roads or clue of public transport for several hundred meters around.
But that's not all.
We asked to show us the documents (tapu) for these apartments. This is where we understood why the prices for apartments are so low. We were shown blue documents, blue tapu on land, in shares (arsa pay). But not for homes or condos (mesken). Realtors assured us that the registration of these apartments is in full swing and that your blue tapu (land) is about to turn into red (residential real estate). But the apartments were furnished (glossy and expensive), we immediately understood that this was done on purpose to dazzle the eyes of the buyer and force him to make a purchase of a super-bright glossy thing, without thinking about the consequences.
What does blue tapu mean? This means that you are acquiring a percentage of a piece of land. This means that you will not connect this "apartment" to water, gas, electricity or the Internet, and if you manage to do this, it will cost you a lump sum, the calculations will be incredible. This also means that you cannot register your address there, because this place does not have an address, street, house, apartment and you cannot register tenants, you cannot make a residence permit (oturma izni) there. This means that tomorrow a state commission may come and say "your building was not built according to the rules, we give you 30 days to demolish."
Perhaps at the time of the sale, only 10 or maybe 3 days were left from these 30 days, otherwise why sell such beautiful apartments at the price of materials? Look at them, only concrete, walls, furniture, appliances, tiles and materials cost about 400,000 lira here! The people selling them have apparently received a demolition order and just want their investment back at least from used materials!
Without giving a sign, we went to another agency in Budja (Buca) with similar advertisements. Here we immediately went on the offensive and asked to lay out all the cards on the table. And, we were surprised to find that the price of 450,000 lira is the first installment in a loan for 20 years with very unattractive conditions and confiscation of an apartment with a delay in payment of only a week.
We did not stop there, there was one more "agency" with very attractive ads. There our surprise knew no bounds. No tapu was offered to the apartments at all, they showed some strange papers for a temporary building (insaat) and no more acceptance documents, technical passports, etc. What is proposed to buy is not real estate in general, but papers for the right of ownership of air and keys.
I would also like to note that, of course, not all apartments in Budja have problems with documents. There are many conscientious realtors and many good apartments here, and some areas in Budja are quite attractive for investments.
Results of the our little research:
We found out through this independent study that in Izmir the cost of apartments in new buildings of the most economic class and with the number of rooms 1 + 1 and 1 + 0 starts from at least 55.000-65.000$ or so. (price example for summer 2023)
And these are the most economical and cheap options, this price is built from simple components, such as the cost of concrete, land, materials and work, and cannot be lower, if price if lower – you must get suspicious.
Anything below this should be questioned and a detailed study of the documents.
Don't risk your investment.
Always contact a professional advisor you trust.
Best regards, Katerina Cankaya.