Assessment of the Application of Financial Leasing in the Real Estate Sector and the Possibility of Increasing Its Effectiveness in Turkey

Financial leasing, which is widely used in medium-term financing of investments in many countries, provides great advantages in meeting the increasing demands of the working capital of organizations. Financial leasing, which is a unique transaction that consists of the combination of three different transactions such as medium-term investment loan, lease, instalment sales, and which have a different quality, is a financing method that is very close to medium-term loan adopted in Turkey. Financial leasing, whose legal infrastructure was first established and backed by the Financial Leasing Law No. 3226 of 1985, was put into its application within the scope of the financial leasing, factoring, and financing companies under Law No. 6361 in 2012. To meet the housing demands, within the scope of Law No. 5582 on the Housing Finance System, consumers are provided with the opportunity to provide long-term funds through financial leasing. In addition, apart from being a means of financing in real estate projects by participation banks and financial leasing companies, it is also used as a sales method in housing finance as a real estate acquisition method. The real estate sector in Turkey greatly contributes to the economy as a hub of employment and stimulates the growth of several sectors, so the consideration of financing of real estate is essential. In the period of 2010-2020 in Turkey, the share of financial leasing transactions in total building investments were decreased by 1% at the end of 2020. The share of financial leasing transaction volume in total fixed investments was around 2% at the end of 2020. In the period examined, the share of construction, real estate brokerage, leasing and operating activities and consumer housing finance in the gross transaction volume of financial leasing was around 20-30% in the period before 2018 but fell below 20% in 2019 and 2020. In the field of financial leasing, especially the sell and lease method, it attracts attention as an Islamic financing model in the financing of commercial real estate investments and housing acquisition. In this study, analysis of the applications of the financial leasing in the real estate sector in Turkey was analysed in aspects of legal, economic, and technical, and the identification of problems, the solution was put forward. Through various data published by financial leasing companies and participation banks and application examples, the conditions of success in the real estate sector were examined by taking into account the development process according to the periods, although it provides various advantages, the main reasons for the lack of widespread and weak development of financial leasing transactions in Turkey were determined. Literature review and regulatory analysis were conducted in the study and the current implementation of the financial leasing method in the real estate sector and its impact on the development of the real estate sector were examined. Based upon the results of the interviews and surveys conducted with the managers and experts of financial leasing companies and the beneficiaries of this vehicle, economic analysis of the use of financial leasing in real estate development and real estate investments, basic application problems and opportunities for the development of financing of financial leasing and real estate investments were evaluated. It is noteworthy that financial leasing companies and participation banks have an important role in the current practice and the employment of real estate development and real estate investments and financing experts in both enterprises is mandatory to increase the success of the implementation of the model.