Apartment for an emigrant – Newspaper Kommersant No. 222 (7423) dated 11/30/2022

The commonplace quote by Bulgakov’s Woland about the housing problem that ruined the Muscovites is now appropriate to address to the inhabitants of some countries, for example, Turkey. There, a sharp increase in migration flows in certain regions causes dissatisfaction with local residents. The other day, about 12 thousand residents of Antalya signed a petition on the change.org platform demanding to stop the sale and long-term rental of housing to foreigners, as real estate prices have skyrocketed.

Directly about limiting real estate transactions specifically for Russians, the petition does not say. But there is no doubt in whose garden the stone is: change.org is a popular resource in Russia, and Antalya has become one of the centers of attraction for citizens actively leaving the country after the outbreak of hostilities in Ukraine. In January-September, Russians became leaders among foreigners in buying property in Turkey (9.31 thousand lots). They also overheated the housing markets in Georgia, Armenia, Kazakhstan. Many local tenants, after the influx of Russians, faced the demand of the owners to move out or pay more.

But it’s not just about tenants and buyers. The Turkish petition on change.org also talks about a sharp increase in the number of foreign real estate agents: there are already about 10,000 Russians and Ukrainians in Antalya involved in such transactions. Often they work through their own groups in messengers, overestimating the cost and putting pressure on the entire market, the authors of the petition say.

Emigrants also contribute to the development of gray schemes. Yevgeny Marushchenko, co-founder of Work in Warmth, spoke about a popular scheme to bypass the current restriction in Turkey on obtaining a residence permit under a lease agreement in locations “closed” to foreigners: “They rent housing in closed areas, and to submit documents they buy a fictitious lease agreement to an open address” . Just the other day, my friend faced difficulties in finding housing in Lisbon: not all landlords are ready to officially register lease agreements because of their semi-legal status.

The authorities of countries completely open to Russians, of course, are unlikely to seriously restrict the purchase or rental of real estate by them. This is not economically viable.

But the tightening of existing mechanisms for control and supervision of transactions looks like a very real prospect. Moreover, it is unlikely to seriously affect demand, political events and limited choice have created a seller’s market in places of Russian emigration, not a buyer’s. The same Turkey in May already increased the minimum investment threshold for obtaining citizenship by 60%, but did not attract less Russians.