Now is a special time for Turkish property investment. We can say that and you have every right to call us biased. However, I would challenge anyone, impartial, unbiased or otherwise to question our reasoning.

It is like a perfect storm. A storm that has been brewing and building since 2002 and is now unleashing its full force behind Turkey, propelling it forth as one of the top places in the world to buy property.

The perfect storm is fueled by Turkey’s incredible recovery from the financial crisis, along with a whole host of other factors all converging to make Turkish property investment gold dust.

Because of the reforms made in 2002 and since, combined with Turkey’s low exposure to the sub-prime crash, Turkey’s banking system was able to survive the financial crisis relatively unscathed. As a result, while a lack of liquidity compounded the crisis in many countries, liquidity in Turkey remained high.

On top of that, because of the AK Party’s solid fiscal management since 2002, including paying down public debt, inflation in Turkey had been consistently falling in the run up to the crisis, and of course during. This meant that Turkey was able to lower interest rates, not only as a knee-jerk stimulation measure, but as a measured policy response to falling inflation. This gave investors and businesses confidence that the rate wouldn’t be jerked back up just as quickly anytime soon.

The combined result of these converging factors was a Turkish economy flying out of recession, from a 6.4% recession-ending growth in Q4 2009 to double digit growth in the first half of 2010. Turkey finished 2010 with a GDP growth rate of 8.2% before going back into double digits in the first half of 2011. In fact, the 10% growth rate in the first half of the year made Turkey the fastest growing economy in the world during the period.

Growing Economy + Growing Population = Growing Demand for Property

Turkey has long had a rapidly growing population, but now that population is growing as rapidly in affluence as it is in number. On top of the natural population growth significant migrations from the rural east into the affluent and job-rich cities in the west are being witnessed. The populations of these cities are growing rapidly in affluence and so demand for property to buy and rent is soaring.

According to the Turkish Central Bank this combination will lead to a shortage of 5.5 million homes by 2015, 2.75 million of those in Istanbul, and the rest mostly across the other major cities including Izmir, Antalya and Ankara.

See the Perfect Storm Analogy.

Another reason for calling the current situation a perfect storm, is the way several events have been so perfectly timed to boost Turkey’s investment potential, that you would think the government had a crystal ball.

For example, the Turkish government goes around the world agreeing visa free deals with many countries, including Portugal, Lebanon, Albania, Syria, Qatar, Jordan, Libya, Kosovo, Seychelles, Ukraine, Cameroon and more. And then the Arab Spring erupts, leaving Turkey as one of the few places safe for Arab tourists, who prefer to holiday in other Arab and Muslim countries. It is undoubtedly true that the surge in Arab tourism to Turkey was helped by the visa free deals with the Arab nations.

Now, the government can make use of a certain degree of foresight to boost its property market. Currently only people from countries that allow Turks to buy can buy property in Turkey, which unfortunately means people from many Arab nations can’t buy in Turkey. But now, at a time when Turkey’s popularity in the Arab world is soaring, the government is considering a bill to remove the reciprocity law and allow all foreigners to buy in Turkey.

If Arabs are indeed allowed to buy property in the near future, experts predict the emergence of a multi-million dollar market. And this on top of the storm laid out above already raging behind Turkey as a property investment destination. It really is a special time to invest in Turkey.