Tbilisi against Istanbul: Istanbul wins on yield, then a 40% mortgage rate settles the argument

Taking the comparison as the site reports it: gross rental yield in the city centre is 6.32% in Tbilisi and 7.28% in Istanbul; outside the centre it is 7.28% in Tbilisi and 7.76% in Istanbul. Price to income runs 13.75 in Tbilisi against 10.22 in Istanbul. On price, Tbilisi is the cheaper city — the centre figure works out at roughly 580 lari per square foot against about 753 in Istanbul, which converts to around 6,200 lari per square metre in Tbilisi and around 8,100 in Istanbul. Outside the centre the gap narrows in proportion but stays in Tbilisi's favour. The Tbilisi data was last updated on 6 October 2026, the Istanbul data on 14 October 2026.

A point of yield sounds decisive until you ask what currency it is earned in. Istanbul rents are set in lira and reset upward as inflation runs; a yield measured at a moment in a fast-moving currency is a snapshot of a ratio, not a promise about what the money will buy in three years. Tbilisi rents at the upper end of the market are commonly quoted and paid in dollars, which is why a Georgian yield tends to mean something closer to what it says. Nor is the yield number the return: both figures are gross, before management, vacancy, repairs, tax and the agent's cut, and both cities have busy short-let markets where the gross-to-net gap is wide. Compare the yields if you like, but compare them as two ratios built on different foundations.

A 20-year rate of 40.69% is not a high mortgage; it is the absence of a mortgage market in any sense a foreign buyer would recognise. At that cost, essentially nobody borrows to buy, which means Istanbul prices are set by cash and by people moving savings out of a depreciating currency. Tbilisi's 12.62% is expensive by Western European standards but it is a working rate: Georgian banks lend, buyers compare offers, and leverage is a real option. That difference changes who the competition is. In Istanbul you are bidding against cash buyers with few alternatives; in Tbilisi you are in a market where financing exists, which cuts both ways — easier for you, and easier for the next buyer, which is what supports resale.

These are crowd-sourced figures: residents and visitors submit prices, the site averages them, and it publishes how thin or thick the sample is. For this comparison Istanbul rests on a much larger pool of contributors over the past year than Tbilisi does, which is worth knowing before you treat the two columns as equally firm. Use the comparison for what it is good for — the shape of the difference, and the order of magnitude on borrowing costs — and check anything you would actually act on against listings, a bank's published rate sheet and a local valuation. A two-city table is a way of narrowing the question, not of answering it.