Turkey on Thursday reported a drop of 21.13 percent in home sales in the first quarter of 2010 compared to that of a year ago, Xinhua reported.
The Association of Turkish Building Material Producers said the drop suggested that the real estate sector has not fully recovered from the recession.
The association said in its monthly construction sector report that 85,857 houses were sold during the first three months of 2010, the lowest since the eruption of the global financial crisis.
The decline was attributable to seasonal factors and rapidly growing home prices, the English daily Today's Zaman quoted the association as saying.
Istanbul, the largest city in Turkey, suffered a drop of 24.79 percent in home sales during January to March compared with the same period of the previous year.
Turkey has stopped shifting housing projects from west to east, the report said, noting that 43.05 percent less houses were sold in the southeastern region of Mardin-Batman-Sirnak-Siirt during the first three months, while the eastern region of Van-Mus-Bitlis- Hakkari also registered a drop of 31.42 percent.
According to the report, the Turkish real estate sector has seen more commercial building projects and less house projects during this period, due to the global economic crisis. The trend is expected to continue in the future, and it is predicted that home sale will pick up soon.