Kicked out in the middle of a harsh Turkish winter, 30-year-old Erdem Yilmaz calculated that he spent two and a half months’ salary to urgently relocate to a new home in Istanbul.
The father of a two-year-old is not the only Turk in this situation after last year’s currency crisis.
Disputes between homeowners and tenants have risen sharply in recent months in Turkey after annual inflation reached 54.4 percent in February, the highest since April 2002.
In the same period, rents have exploded by 85 percent in Istanbul and by 69 percent at the national level, according to analysis by Bahcesehir University.
But salaries have not risen at the same pace, with most increasing by between 30 and 50 percent on average in January.
“We shouldn’t have had to leave,” lamented Yilmaz, who works as a receptionist, upset at his former landlord who claimed he wanted the property back for his son. “He harassed us. My family had no peace,” he added.
Yilmaz is even angrier because he said the landlord’s son did not move into the apartment.
“I saw an advert (for the flat) on the internet a week after we left,” he said, showing a photo of the advert.
The rent is now 2,600 Turkish liras ($190, about 170 euros), compared with the 1,100 liras ($80) paid by Yilmaz.
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