Rental yields in Alanya: the real numbers

Most people buying an investment apartment in Alanya talk about gross yield: annual rent divided by purchase price. It gives you an idea, but it does not decide anything. The real question is what is left of that income.

Long lets

One tenant, twelve months. A two-bedroom apartment in Alanya lets for €350–700 a month depending on location. Gross yield typically sits between 4% and 6%.

The advantage is predictability: low vacancy risk, little management, limited wear on the furniture. The drawback is that the ceiling is fixed.

Short lets

Daily and weekly. In summer the same apartment can bring €400–700 a week, but demand falls sharply out of season. Annual occupancy in a well-run apartment is around 45–60%.

Gross yield can reach 7–10%, but the costs grow too: cleaning, linen, check-ins, platform commission (15–18%) and faster wear. Short letting also carries permit and registration obligations, and some building managements do not allow it at all. Read the complex's management plan before you buy.

Which apartments fill

For short lets, one- and two-bedroom apartments fill fastest. Walking distance to the sea, a lift, air conditioning and a pool are the deciding features. For long lets, two- and three-bedroom apartments are in more demand, and proximity to schools and shops matters most.

The luxury segment behaves differently: villas over 300 m² command high nightly rates but occupancy is low and management needs to be professional.

From gross to net

An apartment worth €150,000, let at €600 a month: €7,200 gross a year, a gross yield of 4.8%. Take off the service charge (about €1,200), tax and insurance (about €200), management (about €1,100) and an average month of vacancy (about €600), and €4,100 is left. Net yield: 2.7%.

Run as a short let, the same apartment might gross €11,000; costs rise to €4,500, leaving €6,500 and a yield of 4.3% — higher, but more work and more risk.

Capital growth

The other half of the return is price growth, which in Alanya has outpaced rental yield in recent years. But that depends on the area and the build quality rather than the property in the abstract: a building thrown up quickly appreciates at half the rate of a good one on the same street.

We run this arithmetic before a property enters the portfolio. When we present an apartment with a yield attached, the figures come from real lettings in the same complex — not from an estimate.