WHY SAMPAS?

No city in Turkey has been urbanized by the standards it should have been. The fact that almost half of the housing stock in Turkey is risky, almost 2.5 million building in the Turkey’s brand city Istanbul is in unsafe condition for earthquake, is both a great danger for Turkey and brings a very important opportunity alongside. That’s why right urban transformation is necessary to create a more competitive Turkey by investing with you, our valuable investors.

SAMPAS, with its experience in industry, takes care of all the details and delivers turnkey ready project to investor. It comes up with land solutions especially in Istanbul where area to be invested is limited and very valuable. Find solution to the details that investors do not want to deal with and smoothens the process.

SAMPAS, already with its produced smart cities solutions, has taken inventory of the areas that is going to be urban transformed years ago and in good condition to evaluate the values and deficiencies. This situation enables to help the investors in the best way and solve many issues that could be a problem normally for the investors.

For further information and for you to check investment opportunities, we’d be glad to have you at our headquarters.

WHY URBAN TRANSFORMATION?

Fast population growth, families tearing apart because of cultural changes, urbanization, increased level of income and increased live standards are the reasons that demand for real estate is constantly increasing continuously.

Within this perspective, when we look at the developments in 2013, especially during the first half, interest rates were the lowest of the history created an increase on demand and ensured that supply demand balance came even. This situation brought important investment opportunities for construction companies as well.

Urban transformation has entered to a new phase after TBMM approved law no 6306 Transformation of Zones under Disaster Risk on 2 July 2012. With approving this law, Turkish government decided to strengthen and renovate the building that has falling risk during natural disasters, which includes 6.5 million houses, with a budget of 400 billion US dollars. This is almost equal to half of Turkey’s building stock. 2 million buildings just in Istanbul is within this scope.

The answer to why to invest to urban transformation became very clear with new regulations, ideal investment atmosphere and government policies that supports this situation. Above all, urban transformation law made real estate projects more meaningful by decreasing investment amount 24% and project approval time 50%.

DOMESTIC DEMAND

Alongside the fact that investment potential and government incentives increased greatly with this law, beneficiaries that want to benefit from urban development and demand houses that resistant against earthquake gave increased. Especially individual investor base’s real estate investment tendency in Turkey is very strong.

FOREIGN DEMAND

If we look at Turkey’s real estate industry from foreign investor point of view, Turkey is in the 3rd place amongst developing economies and the 4th amongst highest valuation opportunity offering economies. *

Association of Foreign Investors in Real Estate (AFIRE) 2013 Survey
In construction industry, foreigners direct investment in Turkey in 2012 increased 4 times compared to the year before, reached 1.3 billion dollars. With the last law, it is much easier for foreigners in Turkey to buy real estate.

GOVERNMENT POLICIES

Government expectation is that 200 billion USD will be invested in the next 20 years on real estate industry. With this expectation, government views urban transformation as the most important means of growth. When we look at this perspective, we can think that current ideal investment atmosphere is not an temporary process but a long term government policy.

Legal legislation that allowed non-Turkish citizens to have real estate effected the process in a good way. Especially Turkic Republics, Russia and Arab nations’ citizens buying real estate from Turkey, which they view similar than other countries, means that direct capital investment is going to increase significantly.

To name the new cost and process advantages came with the new law:
• VAT decreased to 1% from 18%
• Buyer title deed fees completely abolished from 2%
• Seller title deed fees completely abolished from 2%
• Municipality building fees completely abolished from 2%
• Master plane time down to 3-6 months from 1 year
• Approval mechanism changed to 2/3 plurality from unanimity.

With this law, the other important advantages offered to investor are as follows:

Both Central government and municipalities working together instead of blocking each other to manage the urban transformation investment effectively and the increase of demand from beneficiaries to secure and more profitable housing make urban transformation investment very intriguing.

Now beneficiaries’ transformation project is out of the question. Law is granting very important privileges and beneficiaries are in the process in this regard. It is now possible to socialization in some instances. Local governments and government policies are both supporting investor and beneficiaries.

Project area can be in any city inside Turkey which meets urban transformation criteria. It is now possible to carry out very profitable projects at city center areas. And it is possible to shape the size of the project according to investor’s interest level.

Investors have a say to establish the projects location. With the new law, transformation projects can be started very quickly and with a short study process. To look at the improvements on the process:
• Declaring risky area in 3 months,
• Zone studies in 3-12 months,
• Demolition Work can start 3 months after the declaration areas
• It is now possible to finish all constructions in 2 years.