Even though the furnished rental apartment market in Istanbul is not as mature as it is in several European cities, there are many property managers that provide serviced living spaces in central neighborhoods of the city. Services usually include basic cleaning, wi-fi Internet connection and other basic stuff. Some luxury living spaces go as far as providing airport pick-up services, meeting and business centers on the premises, concierge services, etc.. It is possible to find a wide range of furnished apartments in Istanbul from cheap and clean apartments to luxury residences designed for business travelers.

We will be providing a list of cheaper accommodation options in a later post, we wanted to give you an overview of apartments that might suit the needs of business travelers or short term guests with higher budgets. 

Here is a list of notable Luxury Serviced Apartments Providers in Istanbul

The Marmara Residences http://www.themarmarahotels.com (Asian Side) 

Marmara, actually started out as a hotel management company with their flagship hotel located right in the center of Taksim square. The group later expanded their properties to include 3 serviced apartments on the Asian side and 1 in New York. The locations in Istanbul include Suadiye, Camlica and Pendik on the Asian side of the city. The apartments are designed for the high end traveler with the Suadiye residence being located right in the middle of Bagdat Avenue, the prime shopping and entertainment district in the Asian side. The average daily rate for the Suadiye location is around 120 – 140 euros per night depending on the size of the apartments.

Gallery Residence  (European Side, Nisantasi, Sisli Area)

Gallery Residence Istanbul

Gallery Residence, the previous home to the British Council in Nisantasi, was converted into a hi-end serviced residence in early 2006. Another residence that is known for its efforts to combine art with living spaces, Gallery Residence named each of its rooms with names of famous painters like Van Gogh, Gustav Klimt, Goya, Monet, Gustav Klimt, Picasso, etc..The prices include a complimentary breakfast in the dining room of the hotel with a capacity of 30 guests and a gym with hydro message jacuzzi and a sauna is available for guests throughout the day. Gallery Residence is conveniently located in Nisantasi, the fashion center of Istanbul, which is full of high end cafes and restaurants which makes it ideal for travellers. The building is also only 150 meters from the Osmanbey subway station and it takes a few minutes ride to get to other central locations like Levent and Taksim.

Izaz (European Side, Beyoglu District)

Izaz, converted to a modern living space from an old Greek house in the Beyoglu district of Istanbul, offers compact but unique living spaces for travelers. Izaz has a small number of apartments available but it is conveniently located 2 blocks away from Istiklal street, the pedestrian street in Beyoglu full of cafes, restaurants, art galleries, theaters, etc..

Manzara Istanbul  (European Side, Galata, Beyoglu)

Manzara Istanbul, managed by a German Turk, offers a variety of unique apartments in the Galata district of Istanbul. Manzara office is conveniently located right next to the Galata Tower so it is not easy to miss it. The apartments are usually a combination

Manzara Istanbul

of the modern with a taste of the old. The price range for apartments start as low as 50 euros and goes up to around 160 euros depending on the size, location and amenities of the premises. Manzara, literally meaning “view” in English, is not only the name of the management company but a real concept that is practiced by offering some apartments with really killer Bosporus views. Manzara office is really helpful and can accommodate requests from their guests to lend a local hand in case it is needed during your stay.

Asian Side Housing Alternative

 Global Residence Istanbul  is another serviced apartment alternative if you will be staying in the Asian part of the city. There are a total of 57 apartments that are designed in various concepts and there is a sauna, a restaurant, reception are and a sports center on the premises.

European Side Housing Alternative

Noa also provides a variety short term rental opportunities starting from short term. Noa’s properties are conveniently located and it is worth a look especially if you are searching for long term rentals furnished or unfurnished.

The table of contents in the normal business plan goes like this;

I. Table of Contents

I. Table of Contents

II. Executive Summary

III. Business Opportunities/Description

Business Opportunities

Entry Strategy and Growth Timeline

IV. Business Model/Investments

Business Model

Revenue and Investment Model

Types of Investment Properties

Fund Overview

Fund Participation & Private Investments

V. Marketing and Management

Marketing Objectives

Marketing Approach

Competitors

Unique Selling Position

Management Organization

VI. Market

VII. Sample Portfolio Proposal

VIII. Conclusion

IX. Contact

And, I will be publishing some parts of the plan possibly in multiple posts. Let’s call the imaginary serviced apartment chain “Techart” and the investment fund “ABC” Here is some of the content from different parts of the plan.

Please note that some parts of the plan will be deleted for several reasons one being confidentiality. If the text does not make sense, it is probably because there are parts missing between the sentences.

II. Executive Summary

ABC Investment Fund (hereinafter referred as ABC) has identified a significant business model opportunity in Turkey and structured a business model designed to – invest in real estate market in Istanbul, create a serviced apartment brand with a first mover advantage for resale to global serviced apartment chains and ensure a safe investment model with multiple value drivers in place.

ABC’s business model is highly flexible, inflation secure and an opportunity driven model. The investors will have absolute comfort in the investment strategies implemented and the availability of multiple exit strategies.

ABC is a real estate investment fund operating in the Istanbul market since 20**.

Legal framework – The TECHART serviced apartment fund (hereinafter referred as TECHART) will be a seperate investment company and investors will have equity participation in the company.

Security – The objects acquired will be registered in the investment company.

ROI – Estimated return of X% per annum. See financial projections.

Management – The management will be provided by ABC Managment which will work on both renting the units on a consistent basis and build brand name recognition for the portfolio.

 III. Business Opportunities/Description

Business Opportunity

ABC has identified a significant business model opportunity in Turkey and structured a business model designed to invest in a portfolio of both distressed and normal properties that can be developed to serve as serviced apartments and create a national brand to market and manage the properties. There is no significant competition in the market. The market is under-penetrated and presents an early-mover advantage to create a leading brand of serviced apartments.

ABC, through its connections, have access to multiple distressed properties with unique traits and also has a functioning marketing network. The investment model is designed to bring together individual and institutional investors to invest in real estate opportunities with lower than market prices, guaranteed contracts producing high yields and multiple exit opportunities with various value drivers in place.

Entry Strategy and Growth Timeline

ABC, through its connections in the market will acquire real estate in Istanbul and develop them to suit the needs prescribed by the investors and facilitate the premises. The initial strategy is to start with approximately 50 units and increase the total number of units to around 300 within 4 years.

Phase 1 (1 to 12 months)

• Identification of 3 objects with approximately 50 units. The entrance point is the Beyoglu area.

• Setting up the management and marketing team to start promotional activities and brand building.

• Develop and furnish properties and make them available for accomodation preferably within a maximum term of 6 months after acquisition.

• Cash Flow starts.

Phase 2 (12 to 24 months)

• Identification of additional objects in Nisantasi, Bakirkoy (airport area), Historic Peninsula and Kadikoy.

• Acquisition, development and management of additional objects.

Phase 3 (24 to 60 months)

• Identification of additional objects in Ankara and Izmir.

• Acquisition, development and management of objects in other cities.

• Portfolio size approximately 300 – 350 units.

• Possible exit through a sale to an institutional invesment fund or an IPO at the end of 60 months.

Once the initial operation stabilizes, ABC will seek opportunities in other major cities to establish a serviced apartment brand that is present nation-wide.

IV. Business Model/Investments

Business Model

TECHART is structured as an open-ended real estate holding fund. ABC has structured its business model to offer the ideal equilibrium between real estate investment opportunities, investment management, property management and investors.

Key factors are:

• Opportunistic buying opportunities.

• Keeping management and operations seperate from investment structure to ensure security of real estate investments.

• Easier entry for investors and additional exit options such as selling shares instead of selling properties, liquidating individual cash-flow generating objects or a portfolio sale.

• Risk Management

Legal Structure

ABC will adapt a similar legal model to the TECHART serviced apartment fund that it already uses in its *** Investment Fund. The fund will be formed as an “**” – joint stock company-

The investment and property management will be handled through a second company that will operate and be compansated on a performance fee basis.

Revenue and Investment Model

ABC will identify real estate investment opportunities and prepare portfolio proposals.

Investment Steps and Checklist

• Search and locate unique objects with reasonable asking prices

• Legal, structural and financial due diligence

• Best Use analysis

• Projections and Minimum Investment Requirements

• Min 9% yield with guaranteed contracts

• High Capital Gain potential

• Prime city center locations

• Immediate cash flow, usually less than 6 months

• Negotiations and Closing

• Development and Furnishing

• Marketing and Operations

The focus will be on acquiring unique buildings in terms of location, size and type. The investment opportunities can be grouped in two categories;

1. *** Properties

**** Need to delete this part due to some investor commitments.

1. Distressed Properties

Available for purchase at lower than normal market prices, ABC has access to a network of developers and brokers to locate and bid in distressed properties.

Types of Investment Properties

While there are several different types of furnished apartments, Techart is prepared to create multiple brands to meet expectations of travelers at several levels.

• Residential
• Student
• Roommate/flat sharing
• Budget -
• Business travelers

• Commercial
• Instant Offices
• Serviced Offices

We primarily plan to specialize in two different segments of the industry where there is less competition;

Local and foreign business travelers seeking accomodation from several weeks up to 12 months.

• Advantages: Higher rental prices, stable demand
• Disadvantages: High Competition, increasing supply
• Worst Case Scenario: Focus marketing efforts more on local business travelers and offer competitive pricing to classify as corporate housing.

Students seeking accommodation for 1 to 6 months (usually up to a semester)

• Advantages: Low development costs, stable demand, less marketing and operational costs
• Disadvantages: Low income
• Worst Case Scenario: Change in marketing strategy to include non-students and low-income foreigners as tenants

Possible classifications:

• Techart Premium – 100 euro to 300 euro per day with 3 days to 3 month leases
• Techart Budget – 30 to 100 euro per day with 1 week to 3 months leases
• Techart Student?? – 8 to 20 euro per day with 6 month leases

Fund Participation & Private Investments

ABC’s model makes it possible to both invest in the holding company and also provides a partnership deal with private investors who are interested in investing in single objects rather than the general fund.

The TECHART Apartments fund is an open-ended real estate fund employing a holding strategy. Every investor can participate in the fund by acquiring shares. One of the major advantages that come with investing in the general fund is the diversification of risk. TECHART fund acquires and holds various types of properties in several different locations. In case of an unexpected decrease in demand for a certain type of property or for a certain location, the diversification of the portfolio helps with distributing the risk among numerous objects, thereby, protecting the investors.

However, if an investor is only interested in a single or a small portfolio of objects, ABC’s model allows for the investor to invest only in the selected objects through an SPV (special purpose vehicle) company. Considering the properties meet the necessary investment standards and are likely to produce the expected returns, ABC invests up to 50% of the required capital for acquiring and developing the properties in partnership with investors. The properties are then branded and managed by ABC on behalf of the owners and this helps with generating a high return (yield) out of the investments while taking all the hassles out of owning investment properties abroad and producing a turn-key management solution.

Combining multiple serviced apartments under the same management also helps with decreasing the marketing and operational costs of the investment, thereby, help with increasing the net return on the investment both for the investor and ABC.

See Appendixure 1 for a sample of private investment undertaken in *****

 Marketing Objectives

For TECHART

• Value Driver: Establish a strong brand in the market for resale.

• Become the leading brand in serviced apartment industry in Turkey.

• Utilize acquired market knowledge and marketing network to ensure high occupancy rates right from the start.

• Use “art meets technology in living spaces” as a promotional tool.

• Convey our message to the largest segment of the marketplace in the most efficient and economical fashion.

For ABC through TECHART

*******

 Marketing Approach

Techart brand will be promoted by expanding on the “art meets technology in living” spaces concept. Art exhibitions, offering of art pieces for sale in living places and sponsored art events will be used to build the TECHART brand name synonymous with art and technology.

Competitors

Most of the competitors in the market suffer from low capitalization and have limited number of units under management. Of those, who have easy access to capital, they choose to remain in the high-end part of the industry which results in focusing on only a small part of the market that are high-income travelers seeking upscale accommodation options.

Some competitors have portfolios that are made up of smaller properties with generally 5 to 8 units in different locations owned by multiple landlords. Targeting a limited type of travellers generally result in property managers to choose a part of the portfolio to focus on and increase the occupancy rates while other landlords suffer from low occupancy rates.

While there are no brands in the market with an established reputation for providing accommodation at multiple key locations and an expected level of services in all premises, there are several companies offering serviced apartments in limited quantities;

Competitor data is deleted **************

Unique Selling Position

Art meets Hi-Tech in Most Convenient Locations of the City– Meeting all your accommodation expectations

Every property in the portfolio is acquired and designed to uphold the three principles:

Hygiene, Safety and Hi-Tech Communication Equipments

*** deleted

Although a lot of the data is deleted, this should be enough to give an idea to some of you who are familiar with the industry. Should you want to get in touch for additional information or just to discuss your investment plans, feel free to visit apartments.com.tr or oypo.com and drop an e-mail.

There is a great deal of difference in buying a holiday villa in the south part of Turkey and buying an investment property in a major city like Istanbul. The posts on Apartments in Istanbul blog are related to both and provides in-depth information for investors of any size. It is worth a quick look whether you are looking to buy a holiday villa in the south of Turkey or an apartment in Istanbul or Izmir or any other larger city.

The blog is written by expats living in several different cities in Turkey and all writers, some of which I know personally, have extensive experience in both living in Turkey and investing in real estate.

The increasing prices for housing in the region has come to an halt with the effects of global crisis taking its toll in the developing countries by panicking financial institutions and stopping the issuance of credits even creating call-back of open line of credits  for some developers.

Villa for Sale in Turkey

The sudden emergence of problems and instability in the world markets also panicked small investors who had their life savings in long-term and retirement funds. And this created a sharp decline in new buy requests.  Accordingly, a lot of new developments have been put on hold when sales saw a sharp decline. High cost of debt due to these reasons and general lack of credit availability in the world markets has led to developers offering deep discounts for on-going projects.

Some of these developers also had a risky model of investment that solely relied on selling the holiday houses off-plan to finance the construction even though they did not have sufficient funds to finance the projects themselves. A sharp decline hit these developers hard. The market was now full of cheap villas for sale everywhere in Turkey. According to some news outlets, the stock of unsold properties reached up to 60% of all holiday villas built in the past decade in the southwest region of the country.

The prices had seen a sharp decline until the second half of 2009 and started to recover from there and again started to increase slightly. Many developers still have some stock they would like to liquidate, however, a buyer needs to be careful and inspect the properties thourghly. Developers not with much experince, that had seen the profit potential between 2005-2007 also jumped on the wagon and some of them built low-quality holiday houses. This is one of the reason why some developers still have unsold stock in their hands.

Holiday villas with unique traits if priced reasonably still sells very quickly, sometimes in a matter of days of it is marketed right. This Kalkan villa for sale is one example of a unique property that can sell quickly.

If looking for holiday villas for sale in Turkey, it is probably the right time to make an acquisition. One still needs to inspect the property throughly, work with a solicitor and be careful with legal and tax issues.

Thanks

Istanbul Turkey apartments

Fashion stores include well-known brands such as Jimmy Choo, Cornelliani, Bottega Venetta, Paul Smith, Marc Jacobs, Etro, Fred Perry and leading Swiss watchmakers such as Piaget, Chronos and many others. The rents for the retails stores change between 100 and 120 Euros per square meter depending on the size of the store.  

The offices also go for around 35 euros per square meter and they vary between 45 and 450 square meters in size. The residences with a total of 11,000 square meters with different sizes of 56 units is already 85% occupied. These historical buildigns offer high ceilings, private gardens, central air conditioning, 24-hour concierge services and securtiy.

The asking sales and rental prices for the residences on classified ad sites are as follows as of April 16th, 2009.

For Rent:

Rental 400 sqm apartment: 13,000 euros per month.

rental 40 sqm apartment: 1,150 euro per month

For Sale:

For sale 192 sqm apartment: 550,000 euro

for sale 47 sqm apartment: 170,000 euro

Definitely worth a look if interested in finding a central location in Istanbul that will never go out of style.

As a part of this program that had to be announced due to the effects of the global crisis will be in effect for a period of 3 months until June 15th of 2009. The previous 18% tax that was implemented for properties larger than 150 sqaure meters is now decreased to 8%. 

Although this reduction did not directly help recover the real estate market and return to its glory days back in 2007, it definitely helped increased the number of transactions. It motivated some buyers who were already planning to buy these types of properties to go ahed and complete the transactions. If you are planning to buy a property anywhere in Turkey that is larger than 150 square meters, it might be good time to complete the sales within the 3 month period before June 15th and take advantage of this reduction.

Sapphire Istanbul

The article lists the penthouse apartment at Sapphire Residence as the most expensive penthouse flat in Istanbul with a price tag of $7,5 million. This amount is basically nothing compared to its counterparts in London and New York and other metropols but it is mostly due to not having enough supply of penthouse style flats in Istanbul.

Penthouse prices at Atasehir’s Uphill Court are listed as 2 million Liras but Atasehir is neither the prime location in the city nor average prices in this neighborhood can be compared to the ones in Levent or Bebek.

Istanbul is a city where buildings specified as historic monuments are being preserved and the municipalities generally do not allow structures higher than certain heights.

The article should have been comparing prices at developments like Astoria. Selenium, Metrocity, Kanyon, etc… The prices for penthouses are said to be around $5-6 million at other top-notch neighborhoods.