TITLE & CONTRACT LEAD
Independent property lawyer
Real-estate law · reviews every partner project before it goes live · named with consent
Confirming shortly
NOTE
TR Property Office is an independent editorial platform. We are not a developer, brokerage or law firm, and we do not build, sell or hold title to any property. Developers listed here hold their own licences and legal responsibility. Every buyer chooses their developer and project at their own discretion.
About · masthead
“The Michelin Guide of buying property in Türkiye.”
EDITORIAL POSITION · EST. 2026
01 · WHAT IT IS
02 · WHY TÜRKİYE
03 · HOW WE SELECT
04 · ALI — WHAT HE PROVIDES
05 · LEGAL & LOCAL ADVISORS
06 · A NOTE FROM THE FOUNDER
02 · WHY TÜRKİYE
03 · HOW WE SELECT
04 · ALI — WHAT HE PROVIDES
05 · LEGAL & LOCAL ADVISORS
06 · A NOTE FROM THE FOUNDER
Your curated property
journey, your second home
& investment in Türkiye.
An independent editorial platform for buying property in Türkiye. We are not a developer. Not a marketplace. Not a brokerage. An edit — in the tradition of a serious property magazine.
Honest about what we know. Calm about what takes time. Focused on title security and long-term value as much as the purchase.
INDEPENDENT
Editorial — not a marketplace, not a broker.
VISITED
Every project seen in person, on site.
CURATED
Vetted developers — Babacan is our founding partner.
CONCIERGE
Ali — your single point of contact, in six languages.
01 · WHAT IT IS
The shortest answer
We read, write and curate — you choose your developer, we handle the journey around it.
OUR POSITION, IN ONE LINE
What others have called us
“Think of it as the Michelin Guide of buying property in Türkiye — a careful edit, written by people who walk the sites themselves.”
Reader, Munich · spring 2025
We sit closer to a property magazine than to a brokerage. The legal relationship is yours and your lawyer's; the purchase is yours and the developer's; the financing is yours and your bank's. Our work is the long, slow editorial part: the site visits, the interviews, the comparison sheets, the all-in budget estimates, and the introduction that gets the conversation started.
02 · WHY TÜRKİYE
The need this answers
One country has quietly become
one of the world's most open destinations for foreign property ownership.
Open
Foreign freehold
ownership across most regions
$400K
Citizenship route
by property investment
#1
Coastal lifestyle
demand in the region
Free
To the buyer
developer-funded service
01
Open to foreign freehold ownership
Türkiye allows foreign nationals to own property outright — full title (tapu) in their own name — across most of the country. The process is well-established, the land registry is centralised and digital, and the ownership is the same freehold a Turkish citizen holds.
02
A citizenship and residence route
Property is one of the clearest paths to Turkish citizenship — a qualifying purchase from US$400,000, held for three years — and to renewable residence permits. Families, second passports, visa-free travel: real, legislated, and widely used.
03
Strong coastal and city demand
From the Bosphorus to the Aegean and Mediterranean coasts, foreign and domestic demand is deep and durable. Istanbul's transformation districts and the coastal second-home market are among the most active in the region.
04
Value against Europe
Comparable new-build quality on the coast is routinely a fraction of French, Spanish or Italian equivalents — not by cutting corners, but because of currency, scale, and direct-from-developer pricing. The difference buys square metres, a sea view, or a second property.
05
A place to live, not just an asset
From the Bosphorus to the Aegean coast, from Cappadocia to the Mediterranean, Türkiye is one of the few places where the investment is also somewhere you would genuinely want to spend your summers. A purchase can sit inside a life worth coming for.
FIGURE · PRICE COMPARISON
Coastal apartment
€6–9k/m²
€1.8–3k/m²
Sea-view villa
€1.5–3M
€350–800k
City-centre flat
€8–12k/m²
€2.5–4k/m²
Citizenship route
—
from $400k
EU COASTAL RATES → TR NEW-BUILD RANGES · 2025
03 · HOW WE SELECT
The slow work
Six criteria, before any developer enters the guide. Five rules we won't break after.
01
Licences & permits, verified
Construction licence (yapı ruhsatı), sales permit, occupancy permit (iskân), company registry — recorded, linked, dated. Held by the developer. Reported by us.
02
Title security
We confirm clean title (tapu), no liens or mortgages on the parcel that would follow the buyer, and a clear path to an individual title deed in your name.
03
Delivery track record
We look at completed projects, on-time delivery, build quality on the ground, and how the developer treated the buyers they have already handed over to.
04
Financial standing
Company accounts, project financing or escrow, and whether the developer can finish what they start — checked before we list a single unit.
05
Visited on site
Every project in our guide has been visited — on site — by a member of the editorial team. We walk the build, not just the showroom.
06
Independent buyer correspondence
We talk to past buyers we found ourselves, not the testimonials supplied by the developer.
Independence & disclosures
In plain language, the rules behind the edit.
§ 01We are paid by the developer as a lead-source and marketing partner, never by the buyer. That fee never buys rankings, position, or editorial tone.
§ 02No developer may edit, pre-approve, or veto a review before publication.
§ 03Negative findings stay. We remove any developer that fails a follow-up review.
§ 04The editorial team is paid by the platform, not by individual developers.
§ 05AI assists with research, translation, and pattern-finding. Editors make every decision and sign every piece.
04 · ALI
Your concierge
The smartest concierge in Türkiye — with a quietly powerful team reading over his shoulder.
A
Ali
your concierge
“Hello. Tell me what you're looking for, and I'll find three projects worth seeing — with the all-in prices written down.”
EN · DE · NL · TR · IT · FR · usually replies within 2h
HEAD OF BUYER EXPERIENCE
Like a thoughtful friend in Istanbul who happens to know every developer.
“I'll send you three projects, the prices written down, a visit plan, and the reviews — then I'll get out of your way.”
Ali is our concierge — warm on the phone, fast at the desk, and quietly clever about everything that follows. Behind him: a Legal & Title Advisory Board of lawyers, a Local & Lifestyle Advisory Board of agents and city guides, and a careful AI layer that helps him compare, translate and surface, but never decide.
Ali doesn't sell you the property or hold your title — the developer builds and sells, your lawyer protects you. Ali curates, schedules, and listens.
What Ali actually delivers
A curated property journey, before you ever say yes.
01
Top matches
Your three best-fit projects, side-by-side.
For every brief, our editors pick three projects worth your consideration — developer, licences, title status, the all-in price and the caveats. Not a long list. A short, honest one.
02
All-in budget
A realistic total, not a teaser price.
Purchase price from the developer, plus every real line item — taxes, notary, title transfer, agency and furnishing. Currencies you can read. No hidden costs.
03
Visit itinerary
The shape of your trip, before you say yes.
A suggested rhythm — site visits, the notary, a lawyer meeting, and time on the coast to feel the area. You move it around. Or ignore it entirely.
04
Reviews & evidence
The editorial file, in plain language.
Our site-visit notes, the developer's licences, the title position we could verify, what other buyers told us. Strong opinions, weakly held; primary sources linked.
AND · ONE MORE THING
Ali arranges your site visits with the developers you choose to meet.
He emails the developer on your behalf, books the viewing, forwards anything they ask for, and confirms it back to you in your language. After that, the negotiation and contract are yours, your lawyer's and theirs.
THE DECISION
Yours.
Always yours.
Always yours.
The project you choose, the developer you trust, the contract you sign — those are between you, your lawyer and them. We curate the choice. We don't make it.
BEHIND ALI
Legal advisors · local advisors · one careful AI
He's sweet on the phone. He's well-read on the inside.
LEGAL & TITLE ADVISORS
A title-security layer sits between developer files and what Ali tells you.
Independent lawyers check title, contracts and permits for the projects we list. They protect buyers; they do not act for the developer.
LOCAL & LIFESTYLE ADVISORS
Agents, surveyors and city guides who keep the country knowledge fresh.
Independent advisors from across Istanbul, the Aegean, the Mediterranean and Cappadocia. We list, we don't build — projects are delivered by the developers we vet.
THE AI LAYER
A small, careful intelligence that helps Ali compare, translate and surface.
Reads the editorial library. Matches your brief to three best-fit projects. Drafts visit plans in your language. Editors and advisors sign off; the AI never decides alone.
HUMAN-REVIEWED
AI assists, editors decide. Nothing about a developer, a project or your plan reaches you without a named editor's review.
The fine print, in plain language
We owe you transparency about what we publish, what we don't, and why one developer appears here and another doesn't.
READ →
Legal & financial note
We are an editorial platform. We don't give legal or financial advice, hold title, or take responsibility for any purchase you make.
READ →
Editorial principles
How we decide what to publish, how we handle conflicts of interest, and how AI is used in our work.
READ →
How we select developers
The six criteria every developer and project must meet before appearing on this site.
05 · THE ADVISORY BOARDS
Legal & Local
The editorial is backed by legal and local expertise. One lens on the title and contracts we describe, the other on the country we guide you through.
LEGAL & TITLE BOARD
Our Legal & Title Board — founding phase.
We are assembling a founding legal panel alongside our partner developers. Title and contract review is currently led by an independent Turkish property lawyer who reviews every project we onboard. Names are announced with their consent.
FOUNDING MEMBER
To be announced
Property lawyer · Turkish bar · announced when confirmed with partner developers
Announcing soon
LOCAL & LIFESTYLE ADVISORS
City advisors in five regions. Ali's reading list.
Independent agents, surveyors and guides who keep our country knowledge fresh. They advise our editorial — they're not operated by us.
CONCIERGE · YOUR POINT OF CONTACT
Ali
12 yrs hospitality · reads every brief, answers every note
İstanbulTR · EN · IT
ISTANBUL ADVISOR
Deniz Bayrak
Property agent · Karaköy · neighbourhood guide
İstanbulTR · EN
AEGEAN ADVISOR
Mert Koç
Agent · İzmir, Çeşme, Bodrum corridor
İzmirTR · EN · IT
ANTALYA ADVISOR
Ecem Aydoğan
Coastal agent · Kaleiçi · Mediterranean coast
AntalyaTR · EN · DE
CAPPADOCIA ADVISOR
Onur Yıldız
Regional agent · Ürgüp · Göreme
GöremeTR · EN
RELOCATION ADVISOR
Selin Tuna
Residence & relocation consultant · paperwork and settling in
İstanbulTR · EN · FR
06 · A NOTE FROM THE FOUNDER
Why this exists
The question I've been asking for over a decade.
FOUNDER · SINCE 2026
Gizem Burteçin
Two decades building platforms, communities and ecosystems.
Alibaba.com · Doğuş Holding
Founder, Yaşa Devam (2013)
İstanbul · TR · EN
Founder, Yaşa Devam (2013)
İstanbul · TR · EN
I'm Gizem Burteçin. For two decades I've built the places where people and businesses find each other — cross-border trade platforms, communities, coworking — including senior roles at Alibaba.com, where my work was helping international buyers judge which suppliers in an unfamiliar market could actually be trusted, and at Doğuş Holding.
The work I keep returning to started in 2013, when I founded Yaşa Devam at Doğuş — Türkiye's first platform built around aging well. It taught me that the decisions people make about where they will live are never really transactions; they are decisions about safety, family and time, and they deserve to be made slowly, with someone in the room who has no stake in the answer. TR Property Office is the same question asked again, in a market where it is asked badly: how an international buyer can own a piece of Türkiye without being rushed or marketed at.
This desk operates in my own name. That is deliberate. When a file goes wrong, there is no holding company between you and the person accountable for it.
The need was simple to see, and harder to answer well. Türkiye genuinely has world-class developments, a coastline people fall in love with, and full freehold open to foreigners. But the way the country is sold to foreign buyers — aggressive aggregators, lead-broker call centres, packaged-tour mentality — is not how I would want my own family buying a home in a country they're still getting to know.
So we are building the opposite. A small, slow, editorial outfit. Writers who visit. A review process that reads before we publish. A concierge — we call him Ali — who surfaces three projects worth seeing and arranges the visits. AI where it earns its place, hidden behind a person on the phone.
We do not build. We do not hold your title. We do not push one developer over another. The choice is yours. Our job is to make that choice better informed — and the journey around it calm.
Gizem Burteçin
Founder
Glad you're here.
Get in touch
Errors, suggestions, or feedback on a featured developer — we read all of it.
Not a form into the void. Ali replies personally, usually within two hours; the editorial desk replies within a working day.
Editorial desk
hello@trpropertyoffice.com
Press
press@trpropertyoffice.com
Desk
+905324069594 · WhatsApp
Office
Karaköy, İstanbul · by appointment