When foreign buyers compare international property markets, they often start with one question:
Where can I make the highest return?
I think that is the wrong first question.
A market offering a high advertised rental yield may have weak resale liquidity.
A country showing impressive price growth may also have high inflation and currency depreciation.
A cheaper property may come with more complicated ownership rights.
A very stable market may provide lower returns but much stronger legal certainty.
And a beautiful holiday destination may have excellent tourist demand while depending heavily on seasonal rentals.
That is why this Turkey real estate market comparison does not try to prove that Turkey is better than North Cyprus, Thailand, Bali or Malaysia.
My purpose is different.
I want to compare what you are actually getting in each market and what risks you are accepting in return.
For me, international real estate should be compared through at least seven factors:
property-price performance, rental return, ownership rights, currency, market transparency, resale liquidity and the reason you personally want to own the property.
Once we look at those together, the answer becomes much more interesting than simply declaring one country the winner.
The table below summarizes the current picture using the latest reliable data available in 2026.
| Market | Latest Price Signal | Foreign Ownership | Rental Yield Signal | Important Risk |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Turkey | +24.5% nominal, -5.8% real YoY, June 2026 | Direct ownership generally available to eligible foreigners, subject to legal restrictions | Around 7.3% average gross asking-price yield | Inflation, TRY exposure, resale pricing |
| North Cyprus | No comparable official national house-price index | Foreign purchase subject to PTP and evolving acquisition rules | No independent standardized market-wide yield index | Title/political risk, regulation, liquidity, weaker data |
| Thailand | Bangkok-area new condos +0.2% YoY, Q1 2026 | Foreign freehold condo ownership generally capped at 49% of project area; land much more restricted | Around 6.5% average gross asking-price yield | Ownership structure, condo supply, weaker foreign demand |
| Indonesia / Bali | Indonesian primary homes +0.62% YoY, Q1 2026; Denpasar roughly flat QoQ | Foreigners cannot hold ordinary Hak Milik freehold land; other legal structures apply | Indonesia about 8.2% gross, but Bali villas around 4.2% in one current dataset | Title structure, lease terms, zoning, tourism dependence |
| Malaysia | House prices about +1.7% YoY, Q1 2026 | Foreign ownership possible, but state-specific thresholds and approvals apply | Around 5.3% average gross asking-price yield | Slower capital growth, local oversupply in some segments |
There is an important warning about that table.
The rental figures are indicative gross yields calculated from asking prices and asking rents, not official net-return statistics.
They should not be compared as though a 7.3% figure in Turkey and a 6.5% figure in Thailand guarantee that Turkey will produce exactly 0.8 percentage points more income.
They do not.
Taxes, vacancy, management, maintenance, currency and transaction costs can completely change the result.
That is why I prefer the Strategy and Yield Analysis approach: calculate the individual property rather than buying a country because somebody published an attractive percentage.
Turkey has one advantage that should not be underestimated:
scale.
It has a large population, major cities, employment centres, universities, domestic migration, tourism and a very large internal housing market.
That is fundamentally different from buying property in a small destination market primarily dependent on international investors.
In June 2026 alone, roughly 130,000 residential properties changed hands in Turkey.
Foreigners bought just over 2,000 of them.
That tells me something important.
Turkey’s housing market does not depend primarily on foreigners.
For long-term resale, that can be an advantage if you buy a property that also makes sense to Turkish buyers.
This is where comparisons become misleading.
Turkey’s residential property price index increased 24.5% year over year in June 2026.
That sounds considerably stronger than Malaysia’s approximately 1.7%.
But Turkey was also experiencing much higher inflation.
After adjusting for inflation, Turkish residential property prices were actually 5.8% lower in real terms.
So if someone creates a graph saying:
Turkey +24.5%
Malaysia +1.7%
and concludes that Turkey performed fourteen times better, the graph is not helping you.
It is hiding the most important part of the calculation.
The Housing Market in Turkey guide explains this difference between nominal and real property-price movements in more detail.
A European buyer may invest €200,000 in Turkish property.
Several years later the Turkish-lira value of the property might have increased considerably.
But ultimately the investor may want the money back in euros.
So I would calculate:
TRY property appreciation
then
inflation-adjusted appreciation
then
EUR or GBP return.
All three can give different answers.
This does not mean foreign investors should avoid Turkey.
It means the return needs to be measured in the currency that matters to them.
The finance and currency side of international property investment becomes particularly important in markets with large exchange-rate movements.
Turkey can be attractive to a buyer who values:
But those advantages do not make every Turkish property attractive.
The country’s main weaknesses currently include:
I would therefore treat Turkey as a property-selection market, not a country where simply buying anything produces an attractive return.
The Turkey Real Estate Insights section goes deeper into those local differences.
North Cyprus is often compared with Turkey because of geographic, economic and cultural connections.
As an investment market, however, it should be analysed separately.
One obvious difference is pricing.
Many new developments marketed internationally are priced in British pounds, which changes the foreign buyer’s currency exposure compared with property priced mainly in Turkish lira.
But local living, labour and operational costs still interact with the Turkish-lira economy.
North Cyprus recorded annual consumer inflation of approximately 38.1% in July 2026.
So GBP property pricing does not make local inflation irrelevant.
For me, the most important difference between Turkey and North Cyprus is not whether an apartment costs £120,000 or £180,000.
It is the legal and market structure.
Foreign property acquisition requires Permission to Purchase, and the rules affecting foreign acquisition have changed repeatedly.
Title history also requires specific legal investigation.
The island’s wider political situation creates considerations that simply do not exist in exactly the same form in Turkey, Malaysia or Thailand.
For this reason, I would place more weight on:
Anyone considering the market should understand Title Deeds in North Cyprus and the current PTP process for foreign buyers before comparing investment returns.
This is something I think investors should understand.
Turkey has an official residential property price index.
Malaysia has a national house price index.
Thailand publishes detailed housing and foreign condominium-transfer statistics.
Indonesia publishes a primary residential property price survey.
North Cyprus does not currently provide a similarly comprehensive official residential transaction-price index that allows me to say confidently:
“North Cyprus prices increased exactly X% during the last year.”
Private companies publish estimates.
Developers publish figures.
Real estate agencies publish figures.
They may contain useful information.
But I would not present them as equivalent to a national transaction-based official index.
This matters.
Market transparency is itself an investment characteristic.
If reliable transaction data are harder to obtain, your due diligence needs to become stronger.
The North Cyprus real estate market guide explains why new-build asking prices and resale prices can also tell very different stories.
Possibly, for specific properties.
But I would be careful with statements such as:
“North Cyprus guarantees 8%, 10% or 12% rental yield.”
There is no official market-wide rental-yield index that I would use to support that conclusion.
Some developments offer contractual rental guarantees.
Some apartments perform well in student markets.
Some holiday properties can generate strong seasonal income.
Other properties face:
So rather than inserting a convenient 8% into the comparison table, I would calculate the individual property.
That is less impressive marketing.
It is considerably better investing.
Neither universally.
But North Cyprus also carries additional political, title, regulatory and liquidity considerations.
A buyer accepting those risks should understand why the property compensates them for doing so.
That is precisely why the Risks of Buying Property in Northern Cyprus guide exists.
Thailand provides a useful comparison because it is another major tourism and international-lifestyle destination.
For foreigners, condominium ownership is comparatively understandable.
Foreigners can generally hold freehold ownership in registered condominiums provided total foreign ownership remains within the 49% foreign quota.
Land ownership is much more restricted.
That makes Thailand particularly suited to foreign buyers interested in condominiums rather than straightforward freehold villas.
In Q1 2026, the index for new condominiums being sold in Bangkok and surrounding provinces increased only around 0.2% year over year.
That is almost flat.
Meanwhile, foreign condominium transfers nationwide fell 17.3% year over year to 3,241 units during Q1 2026.
This does not mean Thailand is a bad property market.
It means I would not buy there expecting automatic rapid capital appreciation.
The investment thesis needs to come from:
Current asking-price research puts average Thai gross residential rental yields around 6.5%.
But averages hide enormous differences.
Central luxury Bangkok may produce lower yields.
Some outer Bangkok areas can be higher.
Pattaya behaves differently.
Phuket behaves differently again.
This is the same lesson we see everywhere:
country averages are useful for screening markets, not selecting properties.
A 6.5% gross yield could become considerably lower once you deduct management, vacancy, taxes and maintenance.
Compared with Turkey, Thailand generally presents less extreme inflation and currency volatility.
That can make returns easier to interpret.
But lower macroeconomic volatility often comes with lower nominal property-price movements.
You cannot simultaneously demand:
very high growth, very low risk, completely stable currency and perfect liquidity.
Property markets remain annoyingly unwilling to distribute free money.
Bali is probably one of the easiest property markets in the world to fall in love with visually.
That should make you more careful, not less.
Foreign investors need to distinguish between:
owning the building,
owning rights over the land,
and
holding a lease.
Indonesia does not generally allow foreign individuals to own ordinary Hak Milik freehold land.
Foreign buyers instead use structures such as:
Each has different legal and investment consequences.
That makes Bali fundamentally different from buying a normal registered freehold apartment in Turkey.
The general principles in Legal and Title Security become particularly important when comparing different countries’ ownership systems.
This is another area where social media can create an unusual relationship with reality.
Bank Indonesia reported that primary residential property prices nationally increased only 0.62% year over year in Q1 2026.
Primary-market property sales actually contracted 25.67% year over year.
In Denpasar, the city included in Bank Indonesia’s residential survey, quarterly property prices were broadly stable.
Now, this does not mean a villa in Canggu followed the national index.
Bali’s tourism-driven villa market is different from Indonesia’s national primary-housing market.
That distinction is exactly the point.
There is no honest justification for taking a rapidly rising asking price in one Bali neighbourhood and declaring:
“Indonesian property rises 20% per year.”
There is an excellent example in current private rental data.
One current dataset puts Indonesia’s average gross residential rental yield at approximately 8.2%.
Sounds impressive.
The same methodology estimates the average yield for Bali villas at only around 4.2%.
Same country.
Very different property market.
Why?
Because tourist-demand locations can have extremely high purchase prices relative to long-term rent.
Short-term holiday rentals may generate more income, but then you need to consider:
This is why I never use a national rental yield to justify a specific property.
Imagine you pay $200,000 for a long lease.
If you own freehold property, the underlying property does not normally lose one year of ownership simply because another calendar year passed.
A lease does.
If you buy a 30-year lease and own it for ten years, the next buyer may be purchasing a 20-year remaining interest unless an extension is available and economically sensible.
That means leasehold investment needs a different valuation model.
You should ask:
How does the remaining lease affect resale value?
What does extension cost?
When can extension be exercised?
Is the extension legally documented or merely promised?
Ignoring the declining lease term while calculating appreciation can create a very fictional return.
Malaysia provides a useful contrast with both Turkey and Bali.
Its national house price index increased only around 1.7% year over year in Q1 2026.
That is nowhere near Turkey’s 24.5% nominal increase.
But inflation is also nowhere near Turkish levels.
This is why I would never judge the markets using nominal house-price growth alone.
Malaysia is a more mature, data-rich property market where investors can access detailed official transaction, price, supply and residential-overhang information through NAPIC.
That transparency has value.
Malaysia allows foreign property ownership, but the rules are not identical throughout the country.
Minimum purchase prices and approval requirements can vary by state and property type.
For example, current Putrajaya rules use a RM1 million minimum for qualifying strata residential property purchased by foreigners.
A property that satisfies the rules in one Malaysian state should therefore not automatically be assumed to satisfy the rules somewhere else.
As with every cross-border market, current local verification matters.
Current asking-price research puts average gross residential yields around 5.3%.
Again, there is substantial variation by location.
Kuala Lumpur prime property can produce relatively modest yields because acquisition prices are high.
Other urban areas can produce more.
Malaysia may therefore appeal more to someone who prefers:
It may appeal less to someone searching primarily for aggressive capital appreciation.
And that is perfectly acceptable.
Not every investment needs caffeine.
Here is the part of international property comparison that usually becomes marketing theatre.
Someone finds the highest possible yield in Country A.
Then compares it with the national average in Country B.
Then compares both with a prime luxury district in Country C.
Country A wins.
Naturally.
A fair comparison uses the same type of measurement.
Current listing-based gross-yield research gives approximately:
| Market | Indicative Gross Yield |
| Turkey | ~7.3% |
| Thailand | ~6.5% |
| Malaysia | ~5.3% |
| Indonesia overall | ~8.2% |
| Bali villas | ~4.2% |
| North Cyprus | No sufficiently comparable independent standardized figure I would use |
These are gross, not net.
Your actual return can be lower after:
For a serious comparison, use the Real Estate Investment Calculators with the actual property numbers.
Suppose we write:
Turkey: +24.5%
Malaysia: +1.7%
Indonesia: +0.62%
That makes Turkey look like the obvious winner.
Now add:
Turkey real price growth: -5.8%.
The conclusion changes immediately.
Then convert the investment into EUR or GBP.
It may change again.
This is why I think every international comparison should show at least:
What happened in the local currency?
Did property beat inflation?
What happened to your wealth measured in EUR, GBP or USD?
Ignoring any one of these can create misleading conclusions.
Our International Real Estate Market Intelligence section is built around this broader approach rather than simply ranking countries by advertised appreciation.
This is one of the biggest differences between these markets.
Eligible foreign individuals can generally acquire registered real estate directly, subject to statutory limitations and specific restrictions.
For many international buyers, this is comparatively straightforward.
Foreign acquisition requires Permission to Purchase and additional attention to title background and changing foreign-purchase regulations.
Condominium freehold is the clearest foreign-ownership route, subject to the 49% foreign quota. Direct land ownership is far more restricted.
Ordinary freehold Hak Milik land is not directly available to foreign individuals. Rights such as Hak Pakai, leasehold and legally appropriate corporate structures need to be understood separately.
Foreign ownership is possible, but minimum prices and approval conditions can vary between states.
This alone demonstrates why comparing properties purely by price per square metre makes little sense.
You are not always purchasing the same legal asset.
Imagine two properties.
Property A generates 8% gross rent but takes two years to sell.
Property B generates 5% but can usually find a buyer within a few months at a realistic price.
Which is better?
There is no automatic answer.
But liquidity clearly has value.
The large domestic market can provide a broad potential buyer pool, provided your property is relevant to local buyers.
The smaller market and high concentration of international new development can make resale more property-specific.
Bangkok has a deep market, but foreign-quota condos and investor-heavy developments can behave differently from locally oriented properties.
Resale depends heavily on location, remaining lease term, legal structure and continued tourist/investor interest.
A relatively developed transaction market helps, but some areas and property categories carry substantial unsold supply.
This is why I always ask:
Who will buy this property from me later?
before asking:
How much will it appreciate?
This may be one of the most important distinctions between international property markets.
A market supported mainly by domestic households behaves differently from one heavily dependent on foreign investors.
Turkey has a very large domestic housing market.
Malaysia also has substantial domestic housing demand.
Thailand combines a large domestic market with meaningful foreign condo demand.
Bali’s international investment areas can be much more dependent on tourism and foreign capital.
North Cyprus has specific coastal developments where international buyers form a particularly important part of demand.
There is no rule that foreign-dependent markets are automatically bad.
But they can react more strongly to:
Domestic demand gives a property another possible exit route.
Turkey, North Cyprus, Thailand and Bali all have strong tourism appeal.
That does not mean tourist arrivals automatically produce high property returns.
Tourists need hotels.
Property investors need:
paying tenants or future buyers.
Those are not identical things.
A destination can receive millions of visitors while having:
So when somebody tells me:
“Tourism grew 20%, therefore this apartment will appreciate,”
I need several missing chapters before reaching that conclusion.
Most international real estate discussions focus on purchase price and rent.
Legal and political differences are harder to put into Excel.
They still affect value.
North Cyprus has an unusual political and title environment.
Thailand restricts foreign land ownership.
Indonesia requires foreign buyers to understand different land-right structures.
Malaysia applies state-specific foreign-acquisition requirements.
Turkey has foreign-purchase, residency, citizenship and short-term rental regulations that can change the attractiveness of certain properties.
A buyer should therefore ask:
What happens to my investment if today’s regulation changes?
A strong property should ideally retain value even if an immigration incentive, rental rule or investment programme changes.
The broader Legal and Title Security framework is useful precisely because legal structure is part of investment performance, not administrative decoration.
I would not choose a country first.
I would choose a rental strategy first.
Turkey, Thailand and Malaysia can all provide large permanent urban tenant markets.
Specific Turkish and North Cyprus university locations may work, but the individual university, supply and student affordability matter.
Bali, Phuket, Pattaya, Antalya and selected North Cyprus coastal locations can all work.
But holiday rental introduces:
A professionally managed condominium in Thailand or Malaysia may suit someone who values simplicity more than maximum theoretical yield.
There is no meaningful answer to:
“Which country has the best rental market?”
until you know what type of tenant you want.
If your priority is protecting wealth rather than maximizing growth, you may value:
That can make a slower-growing market more attractive than a high-inflation market with spectacular nominal appreciation.
Malaysia, for example, may look boring beside Turkish nominal price growth.
But boring and bad are different concepts.
Turkey can still produce excellent individual investments.
It simply requires more careful inflation and currency analysis.
Investment spreadsheets struggle with this question.
Suppose you buy a villa in Bali and use it for three months every year.
Or an apartment on the North Cyprus coast where your family spends every summer.
Or a home in Antalya where you eventually plan to retire.
The property is providing consumption value as well as investment return.
That is real value.
Just separate it from financial return.
If your villa produces 3% net yield but gives you a lifestyle you genuinely want, the purchase may make sense.
Do not solve that equation by claiming the property really produces 10% because that sounds more respectable.
You are allowed to buy a home because you enjoy it.
Human civilization has survived stranger financial decisions.
My answer is:
It depends on what you need the property to do.
you want a large domestic market, direct ownership, established cities and potentially strong rental demand, and you are comfortable managing inflation and currency risk.
you value coastal lifestyle, GBP property pricing and particular new-development or rental opportunities, and you are comfortable with more complex political, title, regulatory and liquidity considerations.
you want established tourism, urban rental demand and a relatively clear foreign-condominium ownership route, while accepting restrictions around land.
your strategy is closely connected to lifestyle or tourism and you fully understand leasehold, Hak Pakai, zoning, operating costs and the implications of the remaining ownership term.
you prefer stronger market transparency, relatively stable price behaviour, developed infrastructure and moderate rental returns rather than aggressive expected appreciation.
None of these statements says:
buy there.
They tell you what deserves further investigation.
Instead of comparing countries with one percentage, I would create the same financial model for every property.
Start with:
Purchase Price
Add:
Acquisition Taxes and Fees
Legal Costs
Furniture
Financing Costs
Currency Conversion Costs
Then calculate:
Realistic Annual Rent
minus
Vacancy
Management
Maintenance
Service Charges
Tax
Insurance
Then estimate:
Net Rental Yield
Next, examine:
ownership structure,
resale liquidity,
currency,
future supply,
and
likely future buyer.
Finally, run a stress test.
What happens if:
That is a real comparison.
The Foreign Buyer Journey provides the wider process I would use before narrowing an international search to one country.
This is the main problem with the original version of this article.
Looking back at Turkey between 2021 and 2023 and saying:
“Investors made enormous profits, therefore Turkey is the best market”
does not tell a buyer what will happen after 2026.
Past price growth changes the starting valuation.
Sometimes the country that performed best during the previous five years is precisely the country where you should be most careful about what price you pay today.
The relevant question is not:
Which market won yesterday?
It is:
Which property offers the best relationship between price, income, risk and liquidity from today’s starting point?
The International Real Estate Yield Forecast can be used as another research layer, but no forecast should replace property-level analysis.
This Turkey real estate market comparison produces no obvious winner.
I consider that a good result.
Turkey offers scale, domestic demand and comparatively straightforward direct property ownership, but inflation and currency can seriously distort reported returns.
North Cyprus can provide interesting lifestyle and property opportunities, but its smaller resale market, changing foreign-purchase rules, title considerations and lower level of standardized market data demand more due diligence.
Thailand gives foreign buyers a well-established condominium route and substantial tourism and rental markets, but recent price and foreign-transfer data do not suggest a market where buyers should assume rapid appreciation.
Indonesia, particularly Bali, can be extremely attractive for lifestyle and tourism-based investment, but ownership structures, lease terms and local oversupply can matter more than national property statistics.
Malaysia offers better data transparency, moderate rental returns and comparatively stable property-price movements, but buyers should not expect every market to produce spectacular appreciation simply because it is in Asia.
So I would not ask:
Should I invest in Turkey, North Cyprus, Thailand, Bali or Malaysia?
I would ask:
What do I want from my property, and which market gives me that outcome with risks I genuinely understand and can accept?
Then I would compare specific properties.
Because ultimately you do not own the Turkish housing index.
You do not own the Thai condominium index.
You do not own “Bali.”
You own one property, at one price, under one legal structure, in one micro-location.
That property has to work.
For readers still deciding where to start, the Definitive Guide to Buying Property Abroad and International Real Estate Market Intelligence provide the broader framework I would use before choosing a country.
Kourosh Soleymani
Have a question about this article? Send me your question and I’ll get back to you