The Role and Importance of International Real Estate Investment in Emerging Economies: Turkey Case

Globalization, foreign direct investments (FDI) and international real estate investments have been known as most popular issues in recent years. The fourth phase of globalization have “caused such a multilayered change including economic, political, socio-cultural areas. The free movement of capital is known as the most important component of the economic dimension of globalization taken together the conditions of FDI and it has been determined that real estate investment has an increased share throughout the total investment figures in Turkey. Within this respect it has been provided that internationalized real estate investments will play a leading role for emerging economies. Developing economies need to overcome their own problems in the development process regarding their insufficient capital accumulation and technological deficiencies as well as low income and low savings to reach the capital accumulation they need which takes a very long term. Therefore, it seems natural that they aim to obtain the investment capital from global capital within development process. It is also known that FDI offers important profit opportunities not only for the host country but also for the country investing. It is observed that the effects of the strategies to be implemented at both national and regional levels by both sides of the investments where the mutual win-win approach is valid direct this process. Referring to the mentioned effects in specific to Turkey, FDI is essential for the economy as a developing economy. Legal regulations and incentives to attract investments creates an effective and favorable environment in Turkey. Turkey does not only attract foreign investment, but also invests in, shows that having a role in multiple areas of the global economy. This paper aims to reveal the relationship between the foreign real estate investments and the macroeconomic indicators in Turkey using both primary and secondary data as well as tackling the studies examining the FDI received in Turkey briefly. The remainder of the paper is organized as follows. In the next section a quick literature review including examples of developing economies is presented, then legal dimensions regarding FDI in Turkey in addition to international law have been discussed. Section 3 outlines the economic and political climate in Turkey between the years 2007-2019 prior to tackling with fieldwork results (primary data) in the light of the secondary data. Section 4 concludes the paper and propose a solution for the future perspective.