Someone gives you a number: a relative in Istanbul, a neighbour, an agent who has never been inside the flat, or a portal search run from a kitchen table two thousand kilometres away. It sounds plausible and you cannot test it. And the thing that looks most like evidence, the prices on Turkish portals, misleads most reliably of all.
An asking price is not a sale price
A listing price is a seller's opening position. Nothing in it tells you whether the flat sold, when, or for how much: listings expire, sit unchanged for a year, get relisted by sellers who stopped expecting an offer long ago. Advertised prices and the figures on completed transfers visibly diverge, and the gap widens when the market slows.
Averaging what the portals show and calling it your flat's value is the commonest mistake foreign owners make, and it ends with a serious offer refused for not matching "the market". It was never the market. The local version ("my neighbour sold his and mine is better") fails differently: two flats in the same building can price fifteen to twenty per cent apart on floor, aspect, condition and title alone. A valuation runs the other way, from emsal, comparable evidence: similar flats that actually changed hands near you in the last three to six months.
The ten criteria a valuation is built from
1. Location, meaning micro-location
The heaviest criterion, but "location" is not the district. It is walking distance to a metro station, nearness to schools and hospitals, the character of the street: a flat on the noisy main road and its equivalent two streets back price differently. Value also rises in stages around new metro stations, from a line's announcement to its opening. The European side versus Asian side comparison is a starting frame, not an answer.
2. Floor level and the lift
Middle floors, roughly second to fourth, are the most liquid. Ground and garden floors take a discount on perceptions of security and damp; with no lift, the fourth floor and above loses value badly. High floors earn a premium with a view and stay neutral without one, because lift dependency cancels the height.
3. Aspect and view
South and south-east lead on daylight. A sea, Bosphorus or green-space view brings a premium that starts around ten per cent and compounds by segment. A flat facing the next building's wall hits a ceiling no floor area will lift.
4. Building age and the earthquake code
One of the sharpest dividing lines in Istanbul now. Buyers sort buildings into three generations:
- Pre-2000: built to the 1975 and 1998 codes, the riskiest group in a buyer's eyes, discounted against new build in the same location.
- 2000–2018: post-1998/2007 code construction; the middle generation.
- Post-2018: designed under the current Turkish Building Earthquake Code, carrying the strongest confidence premium.
An older building with a ground survey, core test or performance report separates itself from undocumented comparables. If one exists, put it on the table. From abroad, expect it to sit with the building management, not in your file.
5. Complex facilities and the aidat balance
Covered parking, security, a pool and social facilities all count, but only alongside the aidat, the monthly service charge. Buyers in complex-heavy districts ask about it within their first five questions, and a charge high relative to what it buys eats the uplift the facilities were meant to create. Who is liable for which part is in who pays the aidat.
6. Gross versus net square metres
Listings quote gross area; buyers live in the net. A flat advertised at 120 m² gross that measures 82 m² net disappoints at the viewing. In new projects the difference can reach twenty-five to thirty per cent; in older buildings it is smaller — one quiet reason older stock holds its own.
7. Internal condition and renovation level
The gap between a renovated flat and an untouched one is wider than the renovation cost, because the buyer prices the effort and uncertainty on top of the money. The reverse holds too: expensive work in a strong personal taste, dark panelling and recessed lighting, does not land with every buyer. Neutral, clean and new wins: a lower bar than it sounds, and easier to hit from a distance.
8. Parking and what the tapu includes
A covered parking right is a value line in itself where street parking has become impossible. So are extras recorded on the tapu, the title deed: a registered storage unit, a roof usage right. Small print in a listing, real money in a comparable analysis.
9. Comparable sales, not asking prices
The opening point, in its proper place. A sound valuation is built on closed transactions, and access to that evidence is what separates a professional appraisal from an informed guess.
10. Title and planning status
Is it kat mülkiyeti, full freehold title over the unit, or kat irtifakı, the pre-completion construction servitude? Has the iskan, the occupancy permit, been issued? Any annotation, mortgage or usufruct on the tapu? Is the building in an urban transformation scheme? These set the price and also whether your buyer can borrow. And a flat no buyer can finance loses most of the buyer pool at the outset. Read your own title before fixing a price expectation.
The weighting at a glance
| Criterion | Effect on value | Within your control? |
|---|---|---|
| Location / transport | Very high | No |
| Building age / earthquake code | Very high | No |
| Floor, aspect, view | High | No |
| Title / planning status | High | Partly (gaps can be closed) |
| Comparable sale level | High | No |
| Internal condition / renovation | Medium-high | Yes |
| Complex facilities / aidat | Medium | No |
| Parking / title extras | Medium | Partly |
| Gross-to-net efficiency | Medium | No |
| Presentation and preparation | Medium | Yes |
Most of these are not yours to change. The ones that are (condition, paperwork, presentation) close the gap when handled properly, and from abroad the paperwork row is the one most often quietly broken.
How far can you trust an automated valuation?
Online estimate engines have two structural limits. They are fed by listing data, so they average sellers' expectations. And they never see inside your flat: aspect, floor, condition and title quality never enter the calculation. Read the output as an approximate band for the area; where your flat sits inside it is decided by the ten criteria above.
The investor's cross-check
There is also an investor test: what fraction of the sale price does a year's rent represent? That price-to-rent multiple varies by district, and the realistic ranges are in Istanbul rental yields explained. Well above the local norm, your expectation is probably high; well below it, low. It matters because a tenanted flat sells to an investor, who prices on yield.
Market appraisal versus licensed valuation report
Two different documents, and owners abroad are regularly offered one when they need the other.
What Turc Global produces is a market appraisal: a reasoned figure built from comparable evidence and an inspection of the flat, addressed to you and to your decision (list now or wait, at this level or that one).
What it is not is a taşınmaz değerleme raporu, the official valuation report written by an appraiser licensed by the SPK, Turkey's Capital Markets Board: a paid service from a licensed firm, written to the regulator's methodology and addressed to an institution. Where a bank is lending, where a court or official procedure requires it, or where a foreign national is party to the transfer, that report is the one you need, and no market appraisal substitutes for it.
Getting to an actual number
Scoring the ten criteria against your own flat tells you which arguments are genuinely yours. Without closed-transaction evidence, though, the result stays an estimate of an estimate.
For a reasoned figure, ask for a free valuation, built from comparables and an inspection, not from what the portals advertise. If it moves you towards a decision, what selling an Istanbul property involves sets out the process from the owner's side.