Bodrum, the new Marbella...

With its jet-set and mass-market appeal, Britons are being lured to the Aegean

By Zoe Dare Hall

On Turkey's Bodrum peninsula, the views across olive trees and orange groves, rocky peaks and white cube houses have much in common with southern Spain. So, too, does the outdoor lifestyle, the marinas crammed with expensive yachts and the modern villas emerging on hillsides overlooking the sea.

Increasing disillusionment with Spain's high rises and prices is driving buyers away from the costas to this corner of the Aegean, where properties can be no higher than two storeys (a discreet third is sometimes allowed on hillside homes) and you can still buy new-build holiday apartments from £35,000.

Just over 22,000 Britons have bought properties in Turkey, according to the country's land registry, 10,000 of them in the south-west province of Mugla, which includes Bodrum.

Tourism figures show a similar swing in affection. While Spanish airports are among the worst affected by the drop in passenger numbers, the rapid growth of Turkish Airlines means that Istanbul airport - where winter passengers from the UK to Bodrum often have to change planes owing to the lack of direct flights in low season - is one of only two European airports where demand rose this year, says the Official Airline Guide.

Turkey has been the target of various terrorist attempts this year, including an armed attack on the American Embassy in Istanbul in July, thought to be linked to Al Qaeda, and bombs in the Aegean resort of Kusadasi, believed to be planted by Kurdish separatists. But tourists seem undaunted, with visitor numbers continuing to rise and now standing at 20 million a year.

Neil Addis, a courier from Harrogate, North Yorkshire, is among the new converts. I’ve always spent holidays in Spain but when I began to look for a holiday home I kept coming back to Bodrum,' says Neil, 58, whose property search took in the whole of Europe over six months.

He has just completed on a £68,000, two-bedroom apartment in Tuzla Park, 15 miles from Bodrum, through Turkish property specialist Spot Blue. 'I felt Spain was a bit worn out,' says Neil. 'Then I came here and instantly loved it. I'm a mile from the beach, I've got golf, fishing and cycling on my doorstep and there's a great bus service around the peninsula. There's no reason to leave.'

Those who have spent a summer's night in Bodrum will know the town's noisier side - booze cruises round the harbor, nightclubs promising raucous foam parties and the constant flow of tourists in the main street's bars and shops. Neighboring Gumbet, a cheap package-deal hub, is still affectionately known as Scumbet to its largely young British clientele.

But Bodrum is Turkey's Marbella, catering as much to the elite as the mass market. It's where the jet-set come to party. 'While showing a client a £3 million villa last week, I met girls from Istanbul who were down for the weekend on Daddy's yacht, with a driver to take them shopping,' says Spot Blue's Julian Walker.

Designer villas are cropping up all over the peninsula; in Yalikavak, 21 houses by Richard Meier, the architect behind LA's Getty Centre, start at £1.7million (Engel & Volkers).

'Yalikavak was a tiny fishing village. Now it's the Beverly Hills of Bodrum, where Tom Hanks kept his yacht for two years recently, as mooring costs are half the price of the Greek islands, and where stone houses overlooking the bay can cost millions of euros,' says Koksal Demirdag of Cumberland Properties.

'Golturkbuku is another example. It looks like any ordinary coastal village but in summer the Turkish elite flock there to flash their yachts and Ferraris.'

While Turks seek the peninsula's trophy properties, Britons are after good-quality holiday homes for prices that buyers in southern Spain might recall about ten years ago.

'Most British buyers are looking for properties for about £100,000 and many near retirement age move here,' says Angela Croal, who came from London to Yalikavak eight years ago and now works for Cumberland Properties.

'The cost of living is 60 per cent lower than Britain, you don't need heating for nine months of the year and you can have a relaxing, sociable life,' she says. 'Bodrum was originally an artists' colony and it's always been one of the most cultural, cosmopolitan areas of Turkey.'

Cumberland's Seaview Regency villas in Gundogan, near Yalikavak on the peninsula's northern coast, combine good value with attractive design. The three-bedroom houses, spread over three storeys, have glass-fronted living rooms that open on to gardens and a shared pool overlooking orange groves leading to the sea. The 19 villas - all complete, with seven sold - start at £166,000 and some already have rental bookings for summer 2009 at £850 a week.

'Architectural standards are high in Bodrum. You can't build high-rise, you can only build on 15 per cent of the footprint and it's the only place in Turkey where the "no building in summer" rule is enforced,' says Cumberland Properties' London-based director, Eric Kaya.
'Building costs are still far cheaper than Spain and we use good-quality concrete construction, not the prefab blocks now often seen in Spain. Also, investors are buying direct from us, avoiding agent's commission.'

The high cost of water in Turkey makes holiday homes on gated developments with shared pools a cheaper option than individual villas with private pools, Kaya adds.

Sara Wood, 45, and Peter Hunt, 60, from Beckenham, Kent, moved to Yalikavak seven years ago where they built their three-bedroom villa for £150,000. They have just invested in Cumberland's Woodland Regency, just outside Bodrum, set among pine forests and olive groves, with a spa, clubhouse, two pools and where one-bedroom apartments start at £49,900.

'We have bought a three-bedroom villa for £150,000 as an investment property to rent out. One-off apartments are hard to rent out in the current market but this development offers something more luxurious with its spa,' says Sara, who worked for a City law firm while Peter was a probation officer.

'We felt the need to give up on the stress and strain of London life and we're seeing more and more people move here for that reason now,' she says.

'I've been coming to Turkey for 25 years, first as a rep in the days before you could buy deodorant or chocolate. Now development around Bodrum has mushroomed, which everyone moans about, but it's far easier to live somewhere when you have better shops, a year-round community and a plush new cinema with all the latest films in English'.

Taken from The Sunday Mail on November 30th, 2008