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The regulation, which concerns more than one hundred thousand real estate agents, 60 thousand of whom are registered in Turkey, entered into force on October 14. Real estate consultancy activities cannot be carried out without a high school graduate, 100 hours of education and authorization. Every young person over the age of 18 will be able to work easily in the real estate sector after professional qualification training in real estate consultancy.

*** This release is originally published in Turkish.
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ISTANBUL (TR) - With the regulation that entered into force last week on real estate trade, real estate brokerage activities can only be carried out by businesses that have authorization certificates. A real estate business without a high school graduate will not be able to open. In order to open a new real estate business, at least 100 hours of training on real estate trading and success in exams will be required. RE/MAX Human Resources Director Funda Karakaş stated that the regulation is an important step to prevent informality in the real estate sector and said, “The doors of qualified and professional real estate consultancy are finally opening. A serious employment opportunity has arisen, especially for high school graduates.”

"It will be an ointment for youth unemployment and contribute to employment"

The obligation to employ qualified personnel in the real estate sector may be a hope for young people to have a job. Funda Karakaş, who made evaluations on the subject, said, “The real estate sector is as old as the existence of humanity. The need for shelter has always existed. The new regulation approved by our Minister of Trade will bring the sector to a better point. With the regulation issued, in fact, a new line of business has also been fired: Real estate consultancy has now been accepted as a profession and has reached a professional quality that everyone cannot do. 26% of our youth, who constitute 15.6% of our country's population, are neither in education, at work, nor in employment. If our young people over the age of 18 attend 100-hour vocational qualification training on real estate consultancy, they will step into a future business when they get 60 points in the theoretical and practical exams.”

The entire sales of approximately 200 billion lira will be recorded

Trade Minister Ruhsar Pekcan announced that 2.4 million real estate sales worth 390 billion liras in total were made in 2019 and 50% of these sales were realized through real estate enterprises. Pointing out that only 60 thousand are registered real estate business in Turkey, Funda Karakaş said, “This figure is far below the truth. Considering the informal activities, it can be seen that more than 60 thousand people mediate the purchase and sale of real estate. We can say that all real estate sales of approximately 200 billion lira per year will be recorded with the new regulation. By creating a more transparent and accountable real estate consultancy sector, unfair competition against professional service providers will be prevented.”

In return for the brokerage service offered by real estate agents, the service fee rate will no longer be more than 4% of the sales price, excluding VAT, and one month of the rent for leases. This means that a maximum commission fee of 20 thousand lira can be obtained from a residential sale of 500 thousand lira. In the current situation, the purchase-sale commission was 6% and the rental fee was 12% of the annual rent.

The number of houses sold in 2020 exceeded 1 million

According to TURKSTAT data, house sales in the January-August period of 2020 increased by 42.6% compared to the previous year and reached 1 million 24 thousand 534. In this period, houses sold for the first time increased by 11.2% and became 317,832. Second hand house sales increased by 63.3% and reached 706 thousand 702.

The doors of qualified real estate are opening

Funda Karakaş, who stated that the qualified real estate consulting service has been opened, said: "From now on, it is expected to receive at least 100 hours of training on real estate trade in order to open a new real estate business, and at least 60 points from the exam that will be applied at the end of the training. In addition, according to the graduation status, at least 6 or 12 months of real estate consulting and training application is required. Owners and officials of real estate enterprises will need to have a Level 5 Certificate of professional competence, and insured employees in real estate enterprises will need to have a Level 4 certificate of professional competence. In this way, a significant contribution will be made to the quality of the labor force in the sector and consumers will be able to receive better quality services.”

"We will continue to contribute to the real estate sector with digital employment"

Stating that as the largest corporate real estate consulting company in Turkey, only during the pandemic period, more than 1200 entrepreneurs were trained to become real estate consultants, Funda Karakaş said, “Quality and professional service sector always brings growth.As RE/MAX, we win real estate consultants to the sector with training that takes 30 hours since the first day. In this way, we have reached 212 offices, 3876 real estate consultants and over 30,000 contract portfolios in the sector today. We have achieved this greatness thanks to our professional and qualified team-mates. This success allowed us to become RE/MAX Turkey, the fastest growing office among 43 European countries in the first six months of 2020. Our 2020 year-end target is to reach 60 new offices and 4,500 real estate consultants. We have completed online training platform, we will continue to make a qualified contribution to the sector with digital employment in the coming period.”