Après le conflit entre Israël et l'Iran : le positionnement stratégique de la Turquie dans la tokenisation immobilière au Moyen-Orient

Writing by: Yi He

I. Geopolitical upheaval: Reconfiguration of Middle Eastern capital flows and Turkey’s strategic window

II. Turkey’s core positioning: Eurasian land bridge and natural tokenization carrier

III. Economic impact: Explosive real estate demand and macro resilience

IV. Regulation and policy: Upgrading traditional systems, legal barriers remain for tokenization

V. Regional comparison: Gaps and unique advantages of Turkey versus UAE and Saudi Arabia

VI. Major risk factors

VII. Strategic outlook and policy pathways

VIII. Practical investment advice and future forecasts

Key information overview table

Core content

Key events

February 28, 2026, US and Israel jointly strike Iran’s nuclear facilities and leadership, Dubai’s “safe haven” status completely collapses

Turkey’s core advantages

NATO member, distant from direct conflict zones, Eurasian land bridge positioning, $400,000 property purchase for citizenship policy

Key market data

February 2026 real estate sales 124,549 units, a historical high for the same period; Iranian buyers are the second-largest group of foreign buyers

Core obstacles to tokenization

Turkish civil law requires real estate to be registered in land registry; blockchain property rights changes lack legal effect

International benchmarks

UAE and Saudi Arabia have established complete legal and technical systems for real estate tokenization; Turkey lacks specific legislation

Key investment points

80.9% cash transactions, significant premium for Istanbul locations, rental yields with regional competitiveness

I. Geopolitical upheaval: Reconfiguration of Middle Eastern capital flows and Turkey’s strategic window

On February 28, 2026, the US and Israel launched coordinated military strikes against Iran’s nuclear facilities and leadership, with Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei assassinated. This event not only reshaped the security landscape of the Middle East but also fundamentally changed the regional capital flow logic, giving Turkey, long in a “middle position,” a historic strategic opportunity.

Following the conflict, financial markets reacted sharply: Brent crude oil prices surged 9%–14%, reaching $72.48 per barrel, with concerns over the Strait of Hormuz being blocked, oil prices approaching $100 per barrel; Dubai’s real estate index plummeted about 18%, far exceeding the 12% decline of the broader market, exposing the regional concentration risk of Gulf asset portfolios.

Dubai’s real estate market faced unprecedented pressure. Iranian drone wreckage fell near Dubai International Airport, the Burj Al Arab, and Jumeirah Palm Island, directly shattering the UAE’s “safe haven” image built over decades. Data shows that in the first 12 days of March 2026, Dubai property transactions fell 37% year-on-year, and 49% month-on-month in February; large institutional investors sharply reduced local holdings. Goldman Sachs bluntly stated: “Dubai’s risk premium for safe-haven status has disappeared.”

Regional capital began large-scale exodus, with Turkey becoming the main recipient. Iran’s crypto economy exceeded $11 billion since January 2025, with Nobitex, Iran’s largest exchange, seeing a daily capital inflow spike of $3 million after the attack. Despite network disruptions and withdrawal restrictions affecting deployment efficiency, Turkey’s market absorbed substantial spillover capital. In February 2026, Turkey’s nationwide real estate sales reached 124,549 units, a record high for February in the country’s history, with Iranian buyers becoming the second-largest foreign group.

Impact channels

Direct effects

Turkey’s market significance

Oil price shock

Brent crude up 9%–14%, approaching $100

Pressure on energy import costs, more stable than Gulf countries

Stock market contagion

Dubai real estate index down 18%

Significantly reduced direct competition from Dubai

Military exposure risk

UAE infrastructure directly hit

Geopolitical safety premium sharply increased

Capital flight acceleration

Iranian crypto funds rapidly expanded

Further strengthened safe-haven status

Investor sentiment shift

Gulf markets in full wait-and-see mode

Increased demand from direct transfer of investments

Iranian investors’ safe-haven needs show multiple features: concerns over personal and property safety from military conflict, currency collapse risk with Rial devaluation over 80% annually, inability to use traditional banking channels due to sanctions, and desire to obtain nationality through real estate investment for cross-border mobility and generational wealth transfer. Turkey’s real estate market precisely meets all these needs: proximity for management and potential residence, $400,000 property purchase for citizenship and visa-free travel to over 110 countries, mature Iranian diaspora networks in Istanbul, Ankara, Izmir, and local crypto platforms supporting flexible crypto-fiat exchanges, helping funds bypass restricted channels.

Meanwhile, Russian capital has been flowing into Turkey since the Ukraine crisis in 2022, with further acceleration in 2026 due to increased regional risks in the Gulf; Gulf family offices are shifting from “single jurisdiction optimization” to “core holdings,” elevating Turkish assets from “marginal allocation” to “core portfolio.” Russian and Iranian funds form a strong complementarity, jointly supporting liquidity and price resilience in Turkey’s real estate market, enabling it to withstand impacts from single-country capital fluctuations.

Market behavior features show that in February 2026, cash transactions accounted for as high as 80.9%, reflecting typical investment traits dominated by foreign capital, urgent decision-making, and non-reliance on financing; demand is highly concentrated in high-end coastal areas of Istanbul and Aegean and Mediterranean resorts; many buyers purchase multiple properties, clearly building portfolios rather than self-occupying; some investors inquire about fragmented holdings and digital asset structures, indicating high potential acceptance of real estate tokenization.

Despite internal economic pressures in early 2026—February inflation at 31.53%, key central bank rate at 37%, 12-month rolling current account deficit reaching $32.9 billion—oil price shocks may temporarily slow inflation decline. However, Turkey’s institutional continuity advantages are prominent compared to other regional countries: normal government operation, stable financial system, effective legal framework, contrasting with the survival collapse of conflict countries and direct military exposure in Gulf markets. For global investors, predictable known risks are better priced and hedged; Dubai’s safe-haven myth’s collapse is an unmodeled tail risk, forcing immediate portfolio adjustments.

II. Turkey’s core positioning: Eurasian land bridge and natural tokenization carrier

Turkey’s role as a bridge between Europe and the Middle East—geographically, economically, institutionally, and culturally—has been further amplified amid regional turmoil. This structural advantage also makes it an ideal environment for real estate tokenization.

Operational mechanisms

Related value of tokenization

Physical connection

Istanbul International Airport, Bosporus Strait control, high-speed rail expansion

Facilitates on-site asset verification and platform due diligence

Institutional connection

EU Customs Union (since 1995), candidate country, OECD member

European investor regulation adaptation, future integration with MiCA

Financial connection

SWIFT system, correspondent banking network, BIS membership

Supports cross-border token transaction settlement and fund flows

Cultural connection

86 million population, bilingual business networks, Middle Eastern and European resources

Supports bilingual platform development and global client expansion

The EU Customs Union provides Turkey with unmatched market access advantages and regulatory convergence foundation compared to Gulf countries: duty-free industrial goods, gradually aligning regulations with the EU, familiar institutional frameworks for European investors. For real estate tokenization, this means Turkey may gain access to the EU market in the future, creating a core differentiation from regional competitors.

Real estate tokenization can significantly reduce cross-border investment friction, with core value propositions including: fractional ownership allowing European retail investors to participate at lower thresholds than direct purchase, remote participation eliminating physical presence requirements, smart contracts automatically executing KYC/AML and tax withholding, secondary market trading enhancing liquidity, and euro/dollar/stablecoin pricing to hedge Rial volatility.

The ISToken model developed by Istanbul Technical University has verified technical feasibility: Ethereum-based fractional ownership, SPV special purpose vehicle, smart contract settlement replacing traditional Takasbank, and connection to Turkey’s Capital Markets Board (CMB) via distributed ledger. But the biggest bottleneck is legal recognition: while the technology is feasible, there is no legal pathway for implementation, which is the key gap between Turkey and regional competitors.

III. Economic impact: Explosive real estate demand and macro resilience

3.1 Historic record in traditional real estate market

In February 2026, Turkey’s nationwide real estate sales reached 124,549 units, a record high for the same period; cumulative sales in January–February totaled 236,029 units, a slight 0.6% increase year-on-year; mortgage transactions surged 29% to 45,298 units, indicating broad market demand rather than speculative concentration.

Market segment

February 2026 performance

Core interpretation

Total sales

124,549 units

Strong market demand absorption capacity

Cash transaction share

80.9%

Foreign and investment demand dominance

Istanbul share

15.8%

Core market liquidity center and premium area

Mortgage share

19.1%

Limited leverage demand under high interest rates

Prices rose with the national average to $825 per m², up 31.95% from the previous year; Istanbul’s average price reached $1,256 per m², with a rental yield of 7.30%; Izmir’s yield was 7.10%, with lower absolute prices. This yield level is highly competitive regionally; even with continued price increases, investment logic remains sustainable.

Supply side shows no signs of reckless expansion; TSKB’s assessment indicates developers will pause new projects for months to evaluate demand sustainability; the market exhibits rational expansion rather than speculative overheating. With annualized mortgage rates at 33%–35%, domestic leverage purchasing power is suppressed but favors cash foreign buyers, creating a clear domestic versus international demand stratification.

Iranian buyers’ strong return is particularly noteworthy. In the first two months of 2026, Iranian investors purchased 261 properties, second only to Russian buyers’ 366 units, becoming the second-largest foreign group. Historical data shows Iranian purchases rose from 744 units in 2015 to a peak of about 10,000 units in 2020–2021, then declined to 1,878 in 2025, accelerating again due to conflict in 2026. Since 2016, Iranian investors have acquired a total of 45,320 properties in Turkey, with a mature diaspora network, Persian-language services, and cultural adaptation creating an insurmountable market barrier.

Russian and Iranian capital form a perfect complementary pattern in Turkey:

Russian capital: entered after 2022, favoring large transactions, commercial real estate, high-end residential, with medium- to long-term reallocation;

Iranian capital: accelerated after 2026 conflict, favoring dispersed family holdings, income-generating residential, and urgent wealth preservation.

Together, they reduce reliance on a single source of funds and lay the foundation for layered tokenization products: institutional-level products targeting Russian investors, retail fragmented products for Iranian family networks.

3.2 Macroeconomic stability

IMF forecasts Turkey’s GDP growth at 4.2% in 2026 and 4.1% in 2027, leading the region. Key drivers include: construction growth at 10.9%, driven by post-disaster reconstruction and foreign demand; tourism benefiting from regional traffic shifts, increasing European market share; manufacturing gaining export competitiveness from exchange rate adjustments; and safe-haven capital inflows directly boosting real estate and services. Information and communication sector growth at 7.1% provides underlying technological support for digital assets and tokenization.

Compared to inflation, Turkey’s 31.53% remains high in absolute terms but is better managed than Iran and Egypt. Real estate’s appeal as an inflation hedge persists: supply shortages push property prices above CPI, hard assets outperform negative real yields in financial products, and rental indices support property values.

High interest rates suppress domestic credit demand but favor foreign cash inflows, making equity-based tokenization more cost-effective than traditional leverage models. Fitch upgraded Turkey’s outlook to positive in January 2026, with foreign exchange reserves rebounding rapidly, and monetary policy credibility gradually restored, reducing tail risks of policy reversals.

3.3 Foreign capital shifting from Dubai to Turkey

After Dubai’s safe-haven myth shattered, global investors reprice Gulf region risks, shifting from “single jurisdiction optimization” to “multi-jurisdiction diversification emphasizing safety and liquidity.” Turkey, with NATO security, institutional stability, $400,000 citizenship via property purchase, and European connectivity, has become the primary recipient.

Turkey’s $400,000 citizenship and $200,000 residence permit policies are key tools for attracting foreign investment, but current rules require direct property ownership and land registry completion; fractionalized token rights do not meet citizenship criteria, which is a major constraint for large-scale tokenization. Future policies allowing SPV or token beneficiary rights to qualify for citizenship could dramatically expand the market.

IV. Regulation and policy: Upgrading traditional systems, legal barriers for tokenization remain

4.1 Implementation of secure real estate transaction systems

Since May 1, 2026, Turkey has mandated a secure payment system, the country’s most significant infrastructure upgrade for real estate transactions in recent years. This system addresses long-standing issues: large cash transaction fraud, payment and ownership transfer desynchronization, counterfeit risks, unregistered transactions and tax evasion, complex dispute resolution.

System components

Core functions

Reference value for tokenization

Central payment processing

Integration with banks and licensed institutions

Settlement of tokenized fiat inflows and outflows

Funds verification and escrow

Confirmation of sufficient funds before ownership transfer

Smart contract condition execution precedent

Real-time land registry integration

Real-time verification and registration of ownership status

Blockchain-land registry system interface template

Automatic compliance reporting

Tax and regulatory data auto-reporting

Automated compliance reference for tokenization

This system enables synchronized transfer of funds and ownership: buyer payment → temporary fund freeze → land registry verification → ownership transfer confirmation → automatic disbursement → real-time registration, eliminating time lag risks. It provides a key technical precedent for tokenization: real-time payment-registration integration proves blockchain and settlement system collaboration feasible, automation fosters user habits, and payment and identity systems can extend directly to tokenization scenarios.

4.2 Core legal barriers to real estate tokenization

Turkish Civil Code Article 4721, paragraph 705, explicitly states: transfer of real estate ownership must be based on land registry registration; blockchain-recorded ownership changes have no legal binding. This means tokens can only represent economic benefits, not legal ownership.

Additionally, the Capital Markets Board (SPK) has authority to regulate securities tokens but has not issued specific rules for real estate tokenization; tax classification, judicial enforcement, secondary market standards, and custodial procedures are all absent, directly hindering institutional capital entry. Compared to the UAE’s recognition of digital assets as property and Saudi Arabia’s government-verified token-property linkage, Turkey is at a clear disadvantage.

4.3 Current feasible model: SPV share tokenization

Under existing legal frameworks, SPV company share tokenization is the only compliant route: a Turkish LLC or joint-stock company holds the property and completes land registry registration, then issues shares as ERC-20/ERC-3643 tokens. Investors holding tokens indirectly hold property rights. This model is legally feasible but involves high maintenance costs, potential double taxation, complex governance, and limited liquidity.

Revenue rights tokenization (rents, profit sharing) can supplement, following debt transfer rules under Article 184 of the Debt Law, but only as contractual claims, not with priority over property rights, with higher default and bankruptcy risks.

V. Regional comparison: Gaps and unique advantages of Turkey versus UAE and Saudi Arabia

5.1 UAE: mature leader in tokenization

Dubai’s VARA is the world’s first independent virtual asset regulator; DLD has integrated blockchain with land registry, with tokens equivalent to legal ownership, possessing complete licensing, regulatory sandbox, and mature platforms. The real estate tokenization scale is projected to reach $60 billion by 2033.

5.2 Saudi Arabia: government-led rapid advancement

Under Vision 2030, Saudi established REGA-RER-CMA cross-departmental regulatory system, launched a national tokenization platform, completed the world’s first sovereign tokenized property transaction, and issued 9 platform licenses, aiming for 5% of real estate to be tokenized.

5.3 Turkey’s competitive positioning

Turkey lags in specific regulation, token-ownership binding, licensed platforms, and official pilots, but has unique advantages Gulf countries lack: EU Customs Union and candidate status, a large domestic market of 86 million, abundant and diverse property stock, and Eurasian cultural connectivity. Combining these with regulatory breakthroughs could create a hard-to-copy core competitiveness.

VI. Major risk factors

Domestic economic risks: high inflation, lira volatility, current account deficits, high interest rates suppressing domestic demand.

Tokenization-specific risks: legal uncertainty, lack of secondary infrastructure, unclear tax rules, institutional hesitation.

External competition risks: UAE’s early lead strengthening, Saudi leveraging state resources to catch up, Turkey at risk of marginalization.

VII. Strategic outlook and policy pathways

7.1 Short-term (2026–2028): leverage traditional safe-haven advantages, promote flexible solutions

Strengthen Turkey’s safe-haven positioning, optimize foreign investment services and citizenship procedures;

SPK to issue SPV tokenization guidelines, tax authorities to clarify tax rules, initiate regulatory sandbox;

Use SPV share tokenization as transitional, build compliant issuance and OTC liquidity systems.

7.2 Medium-term (post-2028): legislative refinement and technological implementation

Revise Civil and Land Registry laws to recognize blockchain property transfer and smart contracts;

Advance land registry system integration with blockchain, achieve legal binding of tokens and ownership;

SPK to issue specific rules for real estate tokenization, establish licensed exchanges, clearing, and index systems.

7.3 Long-term (2030+): develop Eurasian real estate tokenization hub

Align with EU MiCA regulation recognition, leverage scale and diversification, become a global real estate tokenization center connecting Middle Eastern capital and European markets.

VIII. Practical investment advice and future forecasts

Investment advice. Asset allocation: prioritize income-generating properties in Istanbul’s coastal, Aegean, and Mediterranean resorts, preferably euro/dollar denominated, with $400,000 citizenship threshold assets offering both yield and identity value.

Participation in tokenization: currently only through SPV share tokenization products; avoid direct property rights tokens lacking legal support.

Investment pace: capitalize on traditional real estate safe-haven benefits in 1–2 years; wait 3–5 years for legal and system implementation, gradually increasing tokenized assets.

Risk control: diversify by country and region, use legitimate channels, complete KYC/AML, reject underground token products.

Regional choice: pursue European market access, identity options, long-term stability—choose Turkey; for short-term high flexibility, consider Gulf but accept higher geopolitical risks.

Future forecast. 2026–2027: Turkey’s traditional real estate continues to benefit from regional capital inflows, with sales and prices resilient; small-scale tokenization projects via SPV begin.

2027–2029: regulatory sandbox implementation, land registry-blockchain pilot launches, legal barriers gradually removed, institutional capital begins entering.

Post-2030: Turkey becomes the Middle East’s only real estate tokenization hub connected to the EU market, with increasing tokenization share, forming a differentiated competitive landscape with UAE and Saudi Arabia.