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Invest in Istanbul Real Estate for Turkish CBI – Renovation Costs and ROI

Jun 21, 2026 | Private List update

If you are serious about internationalization, this is it.

Many agencies in this space push the Caribbean passport programs hard, because that’s what they have been doing for years. But the reality of the matter is that there is a much better deal out there.

Turkey, Turkey, Turkey

1. Invest $400,000 in any Turkish real estate and get Turkish citizenship for you and your family
2. It’s an open market. You can buy anything, you are not forced into overpriced developments (which most agents push anyway)
3. The Turkish parliament just approved a bill which will enact a 20-year tax exemption on foreign earned income for new tax residents. So you can buy citizenship, make a solid investment, move to Turkey, not pay taxes for 20 years and then sell your real estate after the three year holding period and remain a Turkish citizen (the tax deal still needs to be published in the Gazette).

This is the deal of the decade in the citizenship by investment space. It combines a high-quality, non-Western passport with an investment that both yields well and has potential for appreciation, along with tax-free residency in a livable country.

I expect prime real estate in Istanbul to perform.

“But what about war, what about inflation, what about the Turkish lira?”

Turkey is always in the thick of things geopolitically speaking, always has been and always will be. It’s part of the deal when becoming Turkish and being invested there. Just look at ever-expanding Israel now openly threatening Turkey. If you can’t deal with this, then it’s not for you.

And yes, the currency is in shambles. But this hardly impacts prime real estate – after seven years of runaway inflation, the country has adapted and property gets repriced accordingly. At the end of the day, why do you think Turkey is offering such a deal? Because it needs foreign investment to cover its current account deficit.

If you have the guts to embrace the new reality of the 21st century, and embrace the volatility that comes with it, you will recognize this citizenship deal as the unparalleled opportunity that it is. This is a vastly superior option to whatever Dubai or the Caribbean can offer, if you can deal with ambiguity and some level of explicit risk.

Turkey is a powerful country

I’m sitting in a coffeeshop in a small military town in Ukraine. Soldiers in uniform are coming in and out to get coffee and lates. This reminds me of an Australian who was in Ukraine when the war broke out. She called the Australian embassy panicking and asking what to do. Their reply: “Go to a border ASAP.”

She had recently naturalized as a Turkish citizen through the citizenship by investment program. She proceeded to call the Turkish embassy in English and explain her situation. She was told in English that she could jump on one of the embassy organized repatriation buses that were to depart Kyiv to the Moldovan border and whose route had been cleared with the Russians by the Turkish embassy.

Only 3 countries pretty much always help their citizens abroad:
– China
– France
– Turkey

Investing in real estate in Istanbul for citizenship

Angelina did the renovations for a few of my units in Istanbul. In this video we view a few apartments in different areas of Istanbul and run the numbers.

https://youtu.be/N-qCy1CCcpY?si=t9ceaGscjsyepXiT

Practical Resources

Join us in Panama to discuss such topics

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These are the very types of topics we shall discuss during our workshop day during the Panama event. It won’t just be about Panama, but also about helping you create a global plan B strategy for you and your family.

The world is changing fast. It’s not just about Latin America, or Europe, or Asia. It’s complex. You want to make sure you have a comprehensive and global perspective before choosing your strategy that is a good fit for you and your family. Everyone’s situation is unique.

Request the brochure and your invitation to The Wandering Investor Live Panama 2026.

To a World of Opportunities,

The Wandering Investor.

Services in Turkey:

Articles on Turkey:

If you want to read more such articles on other real estate markets in the world, go to the bottom of my International Real Estate Services page.

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Transcript of “Invest in Istanbul Real Estate for Turkish CBI – Renovation Costs and ROI”

LADISLAS MAURICE: Hello everyone, Ladislas Maurice of The Wandering Investor. Today we are in beautiful, sunny Istanbul together with Angelina. Angelina, how are you?

ANGELINA: I’m fine, thank you Ladislas, how are you? Welcome to Sunny Istanbul.

LADISLAS MAURICE: Yes, thank you. So, you’ve been helping a lot of people invest in real estate, do renovations here in Istanbul, as well as do the citizenship by investment program. What is the number one question that you get from people?

ANGELINA: Usually clients wondering to understand what to buy: second-hand property or new builds? If it’s second-hand property, renovated property, unrenovated property? After that, they also cannot decide what is better: long-term rental or short-term rental? Which of the property, kind of property, bring better yearly yield, better income, and better resale? So today we’re going to show three different properties. Two properties renovated one, that my team renovated in Nişantaşı. This is property two-bedroom plus one salon and three-bedroom, three bathrooms property. And we will go to new development on the Golden Horn with a sea view. And we will show how is difference in investment if you invest in new build or if you invest in the second-hand property market.

LADISLAS MAURICE: Perfect, and we’ll do the numbers for all three apartments.

ANGELINA: Yes.

LADISLAS MAURICE: All right, let’s go.

ANGELINA: Yes, let’s go.

Why buy real estate in the Meşrutiyet neighborhood of Istanbul for Turkish citizenship?

LADISLAS MAURICE: So Angelina, tell us a little bit more about the textile district because it’s a little random. I personally invested here, I bought two apartments, you did the renovations, why here?

ANGELINA: Because this area is developing. For last four years, the apartment all that started from third floor and upper have been already converted to residential. It used to be all commercial, or on top floors were kind of ateliers, you know, storages. Now all top floors is residential. It Nişantaşısituated in Nişantaşıis located, it’s Nişantaşı. But Nişantaşıhas two locations: Meşrutiyet and Te≈üvikiye. Te≈üvikiye is further and it’s developed a lot, it’s very expensive area, the price the price maybe three times, maybe four times more than here, higher than in Meşrutiyet. So, Meşrutiyet still has good prices and in time, these two areas, Meşrutiyet and Te≈üvikiye prices will be equal because it’s all Nişantaşı, one of the primest, the best location in Istanbul. And it’s three minutes walking distance to the famous Osmanbey metro station.

LADISLAS MAURICE: Yeah, so pretty good location. It’s essentially it’s a gentrification place, so you get your citizenship by investment and then because you want to hold it for at least three to five years, you might as well play the gentrification angle at the same time. But it’s a little loud, especially during weekdays, but on weekends and in the evenings, this place is very, very quiet. So if you have an apartment you want to listen to loud music, throw a party, no one’s going to bother you.

Touring a $270,000 two bedroom apartment in Meşrutiyet, Istanbul for citizenship

LADISLAS MAURICE: Beautiful door. And one of the things about Turkey, or Angelina’s renovations, I don’t know, is the doors are always really, really sturdy. Break-ins aren’t really even a problem here, right Angelina?

ANGELINA: No, it’s very difficult to break. You have to work like around three hours on this door to break it.

LADISLAS MAURICE: Yeah, good luck with this door.

ANGELINA: This area very safe, lots of camera. But we always install this kind of doors.

LADISLAS MAURICE: Can you tell us about the apartment, prices, etc.?

ANGELINA: Yes, this apartment we remodeled and created two bedrooms with bathroom, so here is the main bedroom with en suite bathroom and small balcony. And by the way, the price of this apartment, right now if you want to buy, around 180k USD without renovation. The price went up significantly in this area already for for last four years. So this is another bedroom with another beautiful bathroom. Sorry, it’s my what I think. So, and big balcony. We created big bedrooms so that two roommate can share. The rental price approximately of this kind of apartment is 1,500 USD per month. This is minimum. If we put furniture. The furniture, to buy furniture for this apartment, this kind of apartment, and this size of apartment, is approximately 10,000. The landlord didn’t buy yet, he’s he decided he’s deciding what to do next with this apartment.

LADISLAS MAURICE: And the renovation would have would cost how much to this standard? Essentially before it would have been a textile thing, and then turned into an apartment like this. How much would the renovation…

ANGELINA: Yes, it was office actually here. It was office, and we converted to residential. Last year the cost was less, we renovated last year this apartment. This year it would cost 70,000 USD. So totally, you will invest in this apartment 270 together with the purchase expenses. Purchase expenses around 10,000 as well. Then if you would like to resell, like 20-30% resell on this apartment. With rental income 1,500 USD per month, approximately 5.5%.

LADISLAS MAURICE: Once you take into account all the expenses, I mean, occupancy in this area is, you know, 95%. It’s very easy to rent out apartments. One downside of this apartment, I would say, is the view. It’s a little ugly, some sort of construction site, not too sure what’s going on, but there’s underground parking right here. This is huge. So Angelina, how much would it be for a month of parking?

ANGELINA: They charge around about 100 USD per month. But if you buy membership per year will be cheaper.

LADISLAS MAURICE: Look, this is a big selling point. Traffic, parking in Istanbul is hugely problematic. We’re talking of a city of over 15 million people. So having an underground parking right here, right downtown, is is definitely a big selling point to find tenants. All right, let’s go to the other apartment that you renovated, and that is an Airbnb, right?

ANGELINA: Yes, it’s in Rumeli street. Another beautiful apartment.

LADISLAS MAURICE: All right, let’s go.

An office renovated into a luxury residential apartment in Nisantasi

ANGELINA: This apartment used to be office of the lawyer and then our client bought and we converted to residential.

LADISLAS MAURICE: Beautiful.

ANGELINA: Yes, we actually officially in municipality converted to residential this apartment.

LADISLAS MAURICE: Okay, very nice. Yeah, the location is absolutely amazing. We are a 30-second walk to the Osmanbey metro station, which is core, core Istanbul, so in terms of finding tenants here, not too hard at all. First bedroom…

ANGELINA: First bedroom with bathroom. We created three bedrooms with three bathrooms, large living room with a big open kitchen. So this is first bathroom with bathtub.

LADISLAS MAURICE: And you renovated three apartments in this building?

ANGELINA: Yes, this apartment has five floors, three of the floors of the apartment, three apartments of our clients. We got the Airbnb license because all of our clients wants to run Airbnb. After the building has already Airbnb license, we apply one by one to every client to has own private license to run Airbnb.

LADISLAS MAURICE: And what about the other two apartments, the other two owners, they weren’t against you doing Airbnb here?

ANGELINA: No, no one was against because the manager of the building, he’s doing his Airbnb also, he would like to do his Airbnb. He’s on the second floor, he’s located on the second floor, and the third floor also would like to do Airbnb because it’s very it’s great location for Airbnb.

LADISLAS MAURICE: Yeah, it is. Okay, walking closet, which is huge, with even a nice chair to sit in your walking closet, and a separate bathroom here.

ANGELINA: Yes, it’s en suite bathroom for the owner of this apartment. This is master bedroom.

LADISLAS MAURICE: And a balcony as well.

ANGELINA: Yes, balcony, big balcony with nice view on green, and also it’s quiet because it’s on the backyard of the building. We created classical style in the apartment with some Far Eastern elements, like wallpapers, it’s has a Far Eastern design. Every bedroom has different color wallpapers, and the lamps, if you see, it’s classical, Turkish, but there is some also Far Eastern style in this. All the furniture, built-in wardrobes, kitchen, everything in very light colors, very light range colors, so we tried to create something different, to combine Turkish style classical with the Far Eastern style.

LADISLAS MAURICE: And this is what you want for Airbnb, you want something that that pops and that’s a bit different, so I can see why this would do well on Airbnb.

ANGELINA: Here is a third bedroom, it’s a guest bedroom, with a big walking closet and its own en suite bathroom.

ROI calculation of luxury apartment in Istanbul

LADISLAS MAURICE: How much was this apartment before the renovation?

ANGELINA: 435k USD.

LADISLAS MAURICE: Then you add the closing costs. What about the renovation?

ANGELINA: We totally remodeled, didn’t have any walking closets, didn’t have three bedrooms, bathrooms, it had it had only one bathroom. We demolished and then built three bedrooms, three bathrooms, and two walking closets, for each master bedrooms.

LADISLAS MAURICE: How much was that in total, the budget?

ANGELINA: The budget is around 142k, and 35k for furniture.

LADISLAS MAURICE: It’s important to see the difference with the other apartment where the budget for furniture would be 10k, here it’s a lot more, it’s more of a premium apartment, more of a premium location as well.

ANGELINA: Yes, yes, of course, and it’s large apartment, 160 square meter.

LADISLAS MAURICE: So total investment a bit under 640,000 USD. Now on Airbnb, how much does this apartment fetch per night?

ANGELINA: We think it’s the lowest price is 250, because if you compare to the hotels rooms around the prices, so 250. We hope we will do 300 and more.

LADISLAS MAURICE: And what do you think the occupancy rate will be?

ANGELINA: Occupancy rate is very high in this area, so it’s difficult to say, but let’s let’s think 70%.

Airbnb regulations in Istanbul, Turkiye

LADISLAS MAURICE: Yeah, look, there’s been a lot less Airbnbs in Istanbul because of all the new Airbnb regulations here in Turkey in general and in Istanbul in particular, there’s a lot of supply that went off the market because you need the approval of the whole building to get Airbnb, and most buildings say no to Airbnb. So there’s less supply, and this area, the advantage is that it’s a year-long destination because people come here for business. So it’s not just a summer destination for European tourists or whatever, this here, a lot of people come here for textile shopping, for all of that, wholesalers all over the world they come here, they’ll stay here for a few days, and a lot of Gulf Arabs that come to Istanbul as well to do shopping in Nişantaşı and all the nice shops, they would stay in a place like this. So overall, I would expect an apartment like this to have a higher occupancy rate than your average apartment on Airbnb in Istanbul, especially because the design is just different, unique, and I think that the Gulf crowd, which is the number one clients…

ANGELINA: Number one clients in Nişantaşı.

LADISLAS MAURICE: Right, it’s Gulf clients, they like this sort of thing. So Angelina, you manage the Airbnbs as well? How much do you charge for property management?

ANGELINA: We manage Airbnb, we charge 20%.

LADISLAS MAURICE: Okay, as opposed to 10 for for long-term.

ANGELINA: Yes.

LADISLAS MAURICE: Okay, so here we have a budget for the earthquake insurance, property tax, a bit of money for the incidentals and maintenance. What about the common charges in this building?

ANGELINA: It’s about 50 USD per month. It’s included doorman because it has elevator.

LADISLAS MAURICE: There’s a doorman?

ANGELINA: Yes, there is a doorman.

LADISLAS MAURICE: I… where?

ANGELINA: Downstairs, he’s always here.

LADISLAS MAURICE: Oh, the man who’s smoking cigarettes?

ANGELINA: Yes.

LADISLAS MAURICE: I didn’t think he was the doorman, I thought he was just a man smoking cigarettes. What about utilities? How much would you budget?

ANGELINA: It should be around, between 200-300. It’s a big apartment.

LADISLAS MAURICE: Yeah, especially when you have Gulf clients, you need to remember that Gulf Arabs use a lot of energy. Um, they don’t they don’t try to save on AC, they don’t try to save on heating, it’s just, if it’s summer, AC full on, if it’s winter, the gas will be on the whole time. So just, yeah, you have to budget for that, for sure. So overall, we end up with a net yield of about 7% pre-tax. The long-term rental on the other side was about 5 and a half, so you generally, you do get higher rental yield when you manage to get an Airbnb license.

Yields on long-term vs. short-term market in Istanbul

LADISLAS MAURICE: Of your clients, Angelina, who come here and invest, how many go for long-term versus short-term?

ANGELINA: Usually clients prefer short-term, in especially the ones who invested in Meşrutiyet. Short-term is higher yield, and actually you keep an apartment in better condition because you control your apartment, cleaner coming very often, clean apartment.

LADISLAS MAURICE: And again, if you get Gulf Arabs, they’re not going to be cooking, so the kitchen will literally stay the way it is, it’ll just pile up with pizza boxes and and Coca-Cola, but there’s there’s not going to be any cooking happening. And when people come to Turkey, they go to the restaurant, the food’s amazing here. So you you see less depreciation from that point of view compared to other destinations in the world, I would say.

ANGELINA: Yes, less amortization cost.

LADISLAS MAURICE: Yeah.

LADISLAS MAURICE: So now, Angelina, you’re taking us to a different neighborhood, andwe’re going to check out a new build, right?

ANGELINA: Yes, we’re going to check new build with a beautiful Golden Horn view.

LADISLAS MAURICE: All right, let’s go check it out.

How to manage inflation and currency risk in Turkish real estate investments

LADISLAS MAURICE: Angelina, a question people often have in Turkey with regard to rentals is how do you deal with inflation?

ANGELINA: Our rental prices is USD, so inflation doesn’t affect.

LADISLAS MAURICE: So I understand that they are USD for Airbnb, but what about long-term rentals?

ANGELINA: Long-term rentals, we usually also sign USD because our clients are foreigners, according to Turkish law you can sign USD for foreigners.

LADISLAS MAURICE: Yeah, so it’s also an important point as to why investing in central areas of Istanbul is good because it’s more dollarized. Sure, it’s a bit more expensive, but you’re dealing with a dollarized economy. And I think you do a lot of mid-term rentals as well, not just long-term rentals.

ANGELINA: Yes, a lot, a lot of mid-term rentals, from three to six months, nine months, not full year. And many clients that contact us directly, out of any platform.

LADISLAS MAURICE: So Angelina’s specialty is getting Russian, Belarussian models to stay in apartments, right, for two, three months.

ANGELINA: Yes, they modeling for the this whole textile sellers in Nişantaşı.

LADISLAS MAURICE: That’s her niche.

Overview of the Golden Horn and Tersane neighborhood

ANGELINA: We are at the one of the high-demanded location of Istanbul. We are just on on Golden Horn. I’m going to show you one of the beautiful new builds. So this location is really developed a lot last years, it used to be Tersane, like old shipyards, but now they build buildings here around, and it’s very close to Taksim Square, to Şişhane, just 5-10 minutes by taxi. So here is the building built already, and only two apartments left, one of the apartment that I’m going to show has a panoramic sea view, beautiful, in this building.

LADISLAS MAURICE: All right, let’s go check it out.

Touring a one bedroom apartment in Golden Horn for Turkish citizenship by investment

ANGELINA: So here is the new build, bathroom, bedroom, and big salon, good size. So and here is the balcony with the sea view. Ha, and here we are having problem because this land is buildable, I believe. They might told you that this is could be green area, but nobody going to lose this, they going to not going to make it garden. It will be they might build. And they might build exactly the same level as the building nearby, they have rights to do this. So be careful when you buy online the new build, because you don’t see it in real, and the builder will tell you that you have panoramic sea view, but then you will lose half of the view if someone build. And the price is 365k USD just for the sea view. Then the apartment value will go down if this is the view will be half cut.

LADISLAS MAURICE: The agent who’s showing this to us was saying with a very straight face, or the building manager rather, was saying with a very straight face that this will be a green area. Look, in in certain markets, real estate agents will not hesitate to outright lie. and this is a case here. So let’s go check out another property.

ANGELINA: Yes.

LADISLAS MAURICE: All right, let’s go.

Tersane luxury development in Kasimpaşa district of Istanbul

ANGELINA: We are in very luxury development. It called Tersane Istanbul. The government put a lot of money here, and of course there are private developers built very expensive, luxury apartments here. The cheapest apartment is 1 million USD. So this area has very nice facilities, the culture center already open. It’s very close to Şişhane, it’s a prime location of Istanbul. Very easy transportation, easy reachable by metro, by bus, by ferry boat. And of course it has beautiful seaside, it’s just right on the Golden Horn. And we are going to show you another very standard new build, just five minutes walking distance from here, where you can buy apartment for 160,000, 250,000, and 320,000 USD. Of course it’s a working area, working-class area, but it’s just five minutes from here.

LADISLAS MAURICE: I’ve made a fair amount of money in the different markets across the world playing this, buying in working-class areas right next to luxury developments and then seeing gentrification taking place over the years. So I’m quite excited about this. Let’s go check it out.

ANGELINA: Let’s go.

New-build duplex apartment near Rixos Tersane, Istanbul

ANGELINA: So this is new build, big one, duplex apartment, 4 plus 2, so actually has two floors, each floor has two bedroom and salon, bathroom. The price is very good, 325k USD. So, you can create two units. We can compare this apartment to the first one that we showed, that apartment is around about 100 square meters, price, total investment 270k. So this duplex apartment is 157 meter squares, 320, so if you divide to two, you will cell each apartment for 160, of course with appreciation will be more, so actually you will get better appreciation here than on that apartment. And you don’t need to to do any renovations, you don’t need to wait or waste time on renovation period, you can rent out right away, and you can resell once your CBI completed in three years right away.

LADISLAS MAURICE: Yeah, look, when you buy from developers in Istanbul, the biggest mistake you can make is buying one of those new builds in some random district that’s being pushed by these online agencies that target specifically citizenship by investment applicants. Those are the ones where you end up overpaying. This here is just a normal little development in an area that’s still kind of slightly ghetto, to be completely frank, but literally just a five-minute walk away, you have million-dollar apartments. So it is becoming better, and this is this is just a very non-controversial apartment. It it comes down to $160,000 per apartment. In terms of net square meters, I’d say they’re probably like 55-60 square meters each, and then you just keep this for three to five years, and when you sell in five years, you’re still selling a new build. This is just a very easy way to get your citizenship by investment. You buy this, you add on a little cheapy, and then you have three apartments, you’re good to go, you’re Turkish within a year.

ANGELINA: And if you compare to the second apartment that we showed, that same square meters, 160 square meters, and with investment all together 640k USD, and now you buy 157 square meters with 320k USD. So per square meters you actually win here.

LADISLAS MAURICE: And it has a short-term license?

ANGELINA: Yes, yes, you can do short-term license here too.

LADISLAS MAURICE: Cool. So, you keep one apartment for yourself that you put on Airbnb, you can come whenever, the other one full-time on Airbnb or long-term, I think this is more of a market for long-term rentals rather than Airbnb. It’s not a great place for Airbnb, but you can have one on long-term, one on Airbnb for yourself when you’re here. This is pretty compelling if you want to do the citizenship by investment. Thank you, Angelina.

How to contact Angelina to buy real estate for the Turkey CBI

LADISLAS MAURICE: So I wrote a whole article on the real estate market here in Istanbul, what’s interesting, what’s not, the neighborhoods you should look into, the neighborhoods to avoid. There’s a link below with more information. And if you want to get in touch with Angelina, she can help you find property, do renovations, manage property, and go through the whole citizenship by investment process. Angelina, thank you very much. Really appreciate it.

ANGELINA: You’re very welcome, Ladislas, I appreciate too. Thank you.

LADISLAS MAURICE: Make sure to download my free ebook, 12 Mistakes to Avoid When Investing in International Real Estate, which you can find on my website, link below, and feel free to follow me on Instagram @thewanderinginvestor. I look forward to hearing from you.

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