Assessment of development trends of real estate investment funds implementations in Turkey

Developing countries have improved their markets by accelerating capital movements with the economic and financial policies they have implemented and made an important contribution to integration with the outside world. For this reason, investors are looking for ways to increase their returns by targeting alternative investment instruments in order to benefit from international capital movements in emerging markets. Lease certificates (sukuk), real estate certificates and real estate investment funds stand out in the financing of real estate projects. Real estate investment funds, one of the increasingly attractive alternative investment instruments, are known as investment instruments for individuals and institutional investors with high financial wealth from the first day they were established in developed and emerging markets. A real estate investment fund is an institutional structure that enables individual savings to be brought together and is utilized collectively in professional investments in real estate. In the broadest sense, these funds that appeal to domestic and foreign savings owners, that all shareholders benefit from their profits in proportion to their shares, and that have certain tax advantages are assets governed and audited by the Capital Markets Board.The purpose of this paper to analyze the today’s situations of real estate investment funds in Turkey. In the first part of the report, current status of real estate investment funds as a new investment fund instrument in Turkey have been examined from the perspective of legal regulations and implementation. In the second part of the paper, the development of the funds established in Turkey and an analysis of the current situation and identification of the main problems have been made. Firstly, the names, structures, types, main projects that the funds make or tend to make investments, the basic problems of investors and solution opportunities regarding the real estate investment funds established in accordance with the legal regulations, which were put into effect by the Capital Markets Board in Turkey, were evaluated by means of secondary data as well as data collected from investors in face-to-face interviews. In this stage it was analyzed using the data gathered through face-to-face interviews with the managers and experts of funds, which have obtained the required permissions from the Board and have been operating, and other stakeholders. An in-depth interview technique was used for the data summarization and with using this method, open-ended questions related to the research were directed to the target persons in the face and face interviews, the contributions to country economics, real estate and construction sector, preferences for choosing REIFs for managers, advantages or disadvantages have been discussed by taking the opinions of fund investors and all the stakeholders.