THE BOOM AND BUST OF TÜRKIYE’S CITIZENSHIP/REAL ESTATE INDUSTRY: EXAMINING THE LIMITS OF HOUSING FINANCIALIZATION AND FOREIGNIZATION

Date

2025-7

Author

Nooshin, Lari

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This thesis investigates the intersection of urban transformation, migration governance, and real estate financialization in contemporary Türkiye, focusing on the Citizenship by Investment (CBI) program as a case of market-oriented migration policy. By examining the processes of housing foreignization and commodification of legal status, the research explores how neoliberal strategies have turned property ownership into a vehicle for accessing rights and urban space. Drawing on extensive fieldwork—including interviews with key industry stakeholders—the study reveals how private actors such as real estate agencies, developers, and legal intermediaries act as translocal gatekeepers, engineering demand and guiding capital flows. The thesis demonstrates that the Turkish state has actively facilitated the emergence of a distinct “citizenship/real estate industry” through institutional restructuring, techno-discursive strategies, and regulatory flexibility. However, the analysis also highlights the structural limits of this model. Mounting inflation, currency volatility, and shifting migration policies—especially post-COVID—have led to market saturation, legal precarity, and investor disillusionment. Once a celebrated strategy for financing urban development, the CBI program now confronts backlash from both local residents and disenchanted foreign buyers. The thesis argues that what began as a crisis-management tool to fund housing projects has itself become a source of crisis, illustrating how financialization and foreignization, when pursued without structural safeguards, generate new forms of socio-spatial exclusion and instability. Ultimately, the study situates Türkiye’s experience within global debates on neoliberal urbanism and investment-based migration, calling for a rethinking of citizenship, housing rights, and the commodification of belonging in an era of intensified capital mobility.

Subject Keywords

Urban transformation, Migration governance, Real estate financialization, Citizenship by Investment (CBI), Neoliberal urbanism

URI

https://hdl.handle.net/11511/115119

Collections

Graduate School of Social Sciences, Thesis