Summer housing prices dropped around 40 percent last year compared to 2006 in the coastal districts of tourism hub Muğla province, encompassing the cities of Fethiye, Bodrum and Marmaris, due to a decline in foreign demand, local Today's Zaman reports.

Nevzat Tilkici from the Fethiye Real Estate Brokers Association said that housing demand from foreigners, mainly Britons, had significantly declined.

He noted that foreigners had begun to prefer southern Cyprus, Greece, Bulgaria, Romania and Croatia for purchasing houses because of abuses by some dealers and contractors in Turkey.

Tilkici said some brokers had tried to sell houses worth only 100,000 pounds for 200-250,000. "Some also tried to sell unregistered houses to foreigners," he said, adding that around 1,500 villas in Fethiye were being sold each month on average to foreigners before 2006, but that last year no more than 500 were sold.

Bodrum Real Estate Brokers Association President Ömer Yetkin said the laws regulating property sales to foreigners decrease the competitiveness of Turkey among other countries with coasts on the Mediterranean and Black seas.