Is Mortgage = Konut Kredisi (home Loan) In Turkey

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Below is a list of important changes that are brought with the new mortgage law in Turkey:

New Mortgage Products
Before the mortgage law, it was only possible to lend home loans at fixed interest rates. The law introduced floating interest rates (or a combination of fixed and floating rates) as an additional mortgage type. In floating rate loans, the interest rate is determined from the sum of a fixed margin that is determined by the lender and the inflation rate as measured by the Consumer Price Index. This way banks do not have to face the interest rate risk on their own and may share the risk with the borrowers. In summer of 2007, some banks started to offer variable interest rate loans but so far there does not seem to be much interest in this new type of mortgages and more than 99.9% of the loans are still fixed-interest rate mortgages.

Tax Benefits
Before the law passed on March 2007, there were some plans about providing tax relief to borrowers, however, the only tax relief mortgage law provided was a minor 5 percent Banking Insurance Operating Tax (BSMV) exemption and abolishment of several other smaller operating fees. As an example, before the law passed a monthly mortgage interest rate of 1.30% would be actually 1.3965%. For a 10 year loan of 100,000 YTL, with BSMV exemption the new mortgage law reduced the monthly payment of 1,722 YTL to 1,650 YTL, about 4.2% reduction in the monthly payments.

Loan Length
Before the mortgage law, Turkish banks could offer only shot-term loans up to a few years. This had a very limiting effect on the real estate economy in Turkey. Because of short maturities and high interest rates, funding of houses was mainly done with savings (60+ percent) and relatives/friends (about 25 per cent). The home loans were only making less than 5 percent of the total housing funding.
With the new law in effect for about 6 months, this picture started to change dramatically. The introduction of the new Turkish mortgage law already made a few banks (e.g., HSBC, Sekerbank and Finansbank) give loans up to 30 years to finance. It is expected that the other lending institutions will offer similar mortgages in the near future as interest rates decrease further and demand for longer mortgages continue to increase.

Lending Institutions
Before the mortgage law, only deposit, investment and participation banks could issue home loans. Under the new law, however, consumer funding companies are able to issue home loans too. A few mortgage companies are in the process of starting their operations; it is likely that the growing competition will lower the interest rates, which are very high when compared to those of developed countries. Let’s also note that as these new lenders are allowed to invest in capital markets to create funds for the home loans, it is expected that the financial markets will develop and will have indirect positive effects on the rest of the economy.

Early Payment Fee
Before the law, there was no penalty for early payment of the loan, however, due to the pressures from the banks, the new mortgage law included a penalty up to 2% if borrower pays before due date. This early payment fee is only valid for the fixed-interest rate loans. There is no penalty for the adjustable interest rate loans; they can close their accounts any time without incurring a charge.

Securitization of Loans
With the new law, banks are now able to bundle the loans into securities creating covered bonds and mortgage backed securities. Covered mortgage bonds and mortgage backed securities are debt securities backed by cash flows from mortgages and let the banks eliminate or share the mortgage risk with the rest of the world in a secondary market. Let’s also note that Turkey’s sub-investment grade sovereign rating may not be a big problem in the making good deals in the secondary market as covered bonds typically get higher ratings than the sovereign ratings of the countries. Therefore we expect that the secondary mortgage market is likely to stimulate the growth in the mortgage market substantially and decrease the interest rates when it starts to operate in early 2008.

Bodrum Property – One Of Best Place To Invest In Property

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bodrum property, is the most popular and easily accessible tourist place in Turkey where the people mostly comes from European countries in a summer to enjoy boat, windsurfing, baths and yacht tours to spend their holidays. Now a day, it becomes very popular so for the entire year whether it would be season of spring, autumn, or winter. In spring, many people are coming here for hiking and sightseeing. In the time of winter, people are enjoying the Tangerine Orchards and Camel Wrestling while autumn is the perfect season for sailing and yachting. There are enough to attract people who want to invest their money in the Bodrum as it became most popular tourist and residential place. Also, it is one of the least expensive countries to buy property.

For the decades, many people from the European countries have been living here. Some of them are tourist and real estate investors. This is small town where life is so perfect, feel completely safe and protected. People were not getting easily work permit and facing so much difficulties over applying for residency in the initial time. Both of these procedures are very lengthy in Turkey but as there are all kind of facilities and opportunities available in the fields of tourism, and real estate business along with eastern culture, food, music, control over the pollution and health climate, one can easily wish to buy their own property in Bodrum. After considering all aspects, it becomes best and most suitable place in the world for mostly the people of British and the European countries to live in. As the development is going on in the area of real estate property, market price of the real estate are still affordable to foreign nationals. It can start as low as 30,000 euros for those who are still looking to buy Bodrum property.

Factors To Consider Before Getting A Mortgage In Turkey

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The Turkish residential mortgage market has grown significantly over the last few years mainly driven by falling interest rates. The New Mortgage law that passed in March 2007 further strengthened the legal background for both primary and secondary market triggering a sudden increase in the mortgage product variety. While there were only a few mortgage products before the new mortgage law, currently there are more than 20 different mortgage products for consumers.
However, the fast growth in the market has not been absorbed by the general public. Surveys show that more than 50% of the people don’t have sufficient understanding of the new mortgage system. Moreover, most people have the perception that the new mortgage system is a miraculous system that will let them buy houses without any savings and with very low monthly payments. This article addresses some of the misconceptions and draws attention to the reality by focusing on the real costs of mortgages.

Length of Loan and Interest Rate Relation: While some banks have started to offer mortgage loans up to 30 years in Turkey since the new mortgage loan passed in March 2007, currently the mortgage rates in Turkey are too high to get a loan with loan length of longer than 10 years. The consumers would be better off with loans less than 10 years.
To demonstrate the irrationality of getting a loan with a length of more than 10 years a simple comparison of monthly payments in a few cases will be sufficient. When monthly interest rate is around 1.30% for most banks, as it is in November 2007, monthly payment of only 2-year loan would be 4,877 New Turkish Lira (YTL). Extending the length of the loan to 10 years, would decrease the monthly payments to 1,650 Turkish Lira, a 82% reduction in the monthly payment. While 82% reduction in monthly payments is significant by extending the length of the loan by 8 years, a further extension in the length of the loan does not decrease the monthly payment significantly. For example, if the length of the loan is assumed to be 20 years, the monthly payment will decrease to 1,361 YTL, an additional 18% reduction from the monthly payment in one-year loan. So increasing the length of the loan an additional 10 years decreases the monthly payment by only 18% more. Even more interestingly, for 30-year loan, the monthly payment decreases to 1,313 YTL, an additional 4% reduction in the monthly payment for another extension of 10 years in the loan.
Let’s note that if the interest rates were lower, the optimum point for length of loan would be more than 10 years. For example, if the monthly interest rate were 0.5%, the reduction in the monthly payments would be 87%, 35% and 16% for 10 year, 20 year and 30 year loans respectively (as opposed to 82%, 18% and 4% with 1.3% monthly interest rate). Similar length of loan comparisons can be computed with a mortgage payment vs. length of loan comparison calculator.

Cost of the loan: Interest rates, commissions and fees
The most important thing consumers should do is calculating the real cost of the loan. The cost of loan includes the interest rate, expertise costs, insurance costs and most importantly, fees and commissions.
While interest rates of the banks are usually available on their web pages, most banks do not choose to publicize the commissions and fees upfront. There are cases when consumers apply for mortgage and goes through all the paperwork without any clue about the fees up until the last steps. Since it is usually known that fees are overlooked by the consumers, some banks offer low interest loans with significantly higher fees, which turn out costlier than the high-interest loans. Such incidents can be avoided if the consumers search internet for the mortgage costs. Kredihavuzu.com provides comprehensive information about the mortgage costs for every bank. Effective interest rates should be calculated to compare the real costs of the loan across different mortgage products with fees included in the costs.

Early Closure Fees:
Early closure fees up to 2% of the remaining loan apply to the fixed interest mortgages. Adjustable rate mortgages can be closed without any closure fees. If you have a fixed interest mortgage and interest rates fall, it may be harder to refinance. You may use the advanced refinance calculator to find the best refinance options for you.

Expertise Expenses :
Before applying for a mortgage, consumers should make sure that the real estate that they plan to buy is eligible for mortgages. Otherwise, consumers may need to pay the expertise expenses (between 250 to 600 YTL) without being able to get the loan.

Berk Akman is working for KrediHavuzu.com, Turkey’s leading online mortgage services company dedicated in providing up-to-date interest rate and fee information of the lenders, various mortgage tools and products for optimal mortgage design.

On The New Mortgage Law Of Turkey

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Since the new Turkish mortgage law passed on March 2007, the mortgage and real estate markets have continued their growing trends that are mainly driven by lower interest rates; however, this growth is probably just the tip of the iceberg.

The Turkish mortgage law that passed on March 2007 has two important properties that are expected to boom the mortgage and real estate markets in Turkey:

1) New mortgage products :
With the inclusion of the adjustable rate mortgage products, banks are able to transfer some of the economy related risks in their balance sheets to borrowers. In adjustable rate mortgage products, the interest rate is a sum of a fixed margin that is determined by the lender and a benchmark index that is set by Central Bank of Turkey. In May 2007, central bank decided that Consumer Price Index should be the benchmark index for the variable interest rate calculation. In summer of 2007, some banks started to offer various adjustable rate mortgages and these loans, as expected have lower APRs. However, as Central bank’s current records show there is almost no interest in these variable interest loans right now. This lack of interest is probably due to several factors such as: i) the lack of trust in Turkish economy and the fear of a substantial increase in the interest rates even though the economy has been performing fine in the last 5 years without any major crisis; ii) the recent mortgage crisis in the USA, and particularly, the rise in mortgage default rates in the USA and the fact that most of the increases in the defaults were in the sub prime market and adjustable rate mortgages; and, iii) the lack of understanding of the benefits and risks of these new products. We believe that these three reasons are temporary and in the near future, as people are educated about the risks and benefits of these new products and mortgage brokers fill the necessary knowledge gap, the interest in the products will increase.

2) Securitization of Loans :
About six months after the new mortgage law passed, Capital Markets Board of Turkey completed secondary legislations on mortgage covered bonds and mortgage backed securities. With this addition to the law, banks are now able to bundle the loans into securities and take them off their balance sheets. Covered mortgage bonds and mortgage backed securities are debt instruments secured by a covered pool of mortgage loans (or public-sector debt) to which investors have a preferential claim in case of default. These instruments are among the most liquid fixed income securities after the government bonds in Europe. While it is not expected to see the first securitization until early 2008, reduced risk for the banks will cause a significant and sustainable growth in the mortgage market in the coming years.

Expectations for the future

a)The secondary mortgage market will probably trigger a decrease in the interest rates as banks will be able to transfer their risks off their balance sheets and the ratings of the deals in the secondary mortgage market could be higher than Turkey’s sub-investment grade sovereign rating (this has been the case in similar cases).

b)With the secondary mortgage market’s effects, the banks’ competition growth will fuel an already booming housing market. Especially, when the monthly interest rates get closer to 1 percent per month, the volumes will be substantial, as they were earlier. Expected growth in the mortgage market is expected to mimic those in Spain and South Korea as these countries have followed similar paths as Turkey. Sizes of the mortgage market in Spain and South Korea GDP are 50 and 25 percent of the GDP respectively. So it is not inconceivable to expect that Turkey’s mortgage market may grow up to 30% to %40 percent of the GDP from its current share of less than 10%. Note that since Turkey has a very strong ownership culture, the ratio can be even higher.

c)Turkey’s new long term mortgage laws will increase the investment in Turkey. The new instruments that will be introduced with the securitized mortgages will increase the stability and depth of the financial system probably creating a natural cushion for any unexpected events and decreasing the volatility and avoiding the episodes of financial crises that were observed in 2001 and 1994.

d) Enhanced foreign investment in the property market will cause a boom in the property market. Also in addition to real estate market, as mortgages will need associated insurance, it is expected that insurance sector will be a big beneficiary of the new mortgage law.

e) The central bank will have more dominant place in the economy similar to the developed countries.

f)New law will help strengthen Turkey’s EU bid. The Turkish mortgage law will bring Turkey into line with the standards and practices expected from worldwide property purchasers and investors.

In addition to the tangible effects listed above, we expect that there will be very important intangible effects too. For example, in a country like Turkey where ‘future planning’ is measured with months (mostly because of the economic, financial and political crises), just the fact that people are now able to get a loan up to 30 years is an encouraging incident that will probably change the way people plan, invest, spend and save in the future. Since being able to plan for the future is one of the most important requirements of economic development, the additional foresight produced by the new mortgage law may be one of the biggest impacts of the new mortgage law in the long run.