Türkiye launches the largest social housing project in its history economy

Ankara – Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan launched a new social housing project last week to build 500,000 housing units in all 81 Turkish states, in a move described as the largest in the history of the country in terms of housing programs.

The project – which was announced during the cabinet meeting, which was called the “Housing Project for Housing” – aims to provide safe and affordable housing for citizens, with the availability of the social rent option for the first time in addition to ownership.

This huge plan is scheduled to be implemented at the end of this year, after the authorities completed the necessary preparations in cooperation with the Turkish Housing Department (Toki), with President Erdogan to announce the rest of the details of the executive project.

The largest social housing campaign

The new project represents what the government described as “the largest social housing campaign in the history of the Turkish Republic”, clearly exceeding all previous initiatives in terms of size and ambition, after Ankara launched during the past years projects to build 50 thousand housing units and then 100 thousand units, before it was revealed in 2022 about the “first home” initiative to build 250 thousand units and then considered the largest, the current project is doubled for this number to put the country in front of an unprecedented experience In the field of social housing.

The campaign extends to all Turkish states, ensuring a balanced geographical distribution, with a focus on providing safe resistant housing in light of the seismic risks in the country.

The government has based its plans to the experience of reconstruction of the affected areas of the February 2023 earthquake, and more than 304,000 housing units have so far been delivered to those affected within the reconstruction program.

According to official data, the Turkish Housing Department has completed, since its inception, the construction of about 1.74 million social housing units throughout the country, while work is currently underway to construct 280 thousand additional units under implementation.

Social rent

For the first time in the history of Turkish housing policies, the government introduces the option of social rent within the new housing project, to be complementary to the usual ownership mechanism, and according to the plan, the government housing institution “Toki” will build units for long -term rent at subsidized prices, so that the benefit is not limited to the sale as usual.

The application of the new model from Istanbul, which has been witnessing a suffocating crisis for years in the rental market with an unprecedented rise in prices, begins with the aim of reducing the burden on limited income families by providing rental apartments that cost the market levels, which restores some balance to the troubled housing market.

According to the declared mechanism, the state – through the “Toki” administration – will take over the role of the direct lessor, while setting accurate criteria to determine the qualified groups to benefit from these units, and the value of the rent will be determined by less than the popular price, with a priority for the most needy families, and as in previous sale projects, a public draw will take place to choose the beneficiaries among the applicants who meet the conditions, in a step aimed at ensuring transparency and equivalent Opportunities.

After the end of the rental period stipulated in the contract, and the unit subject to the necessary maintenance operations, it will be offered again for rent in favor of new families according to the same mechanism. In this way, it is expected that each unit is expected to benefit from the largest possible number of citizens in the long run, instead of limiting its benefits to only one tenant.

Crisis and solutions

The rental crisis is at the forefront of the economic and social scene in Turkey as one of the most urgent files on citizens ’daily lives, despite the government declaring the success of its monetary policies in reducing inflation to 33.29% last September, the rental market remained outside this path, and prices continued their jumps at rates that exceeded the official data.

While the Statistics Authority estimated the rate of annual increase of rents at 38.36%, the field reality reveals increases that exceed weakness in major cities such as Istanbul, the country’s economic capital.

These jumps caused the decline in the percentage of home ownership to 55.8% in 2024, which is the lowest level in 18 years, compared to about 61% before a decade.

Nearly half of the Turkish families live in leased housing, with the increasing dependence of limited income slides from the rent from 24.5% to 36.7% in a few years.

Even in the ranks of the middle class, the ownership rate fell from 58.6% to 56.3% in only one year, reflecting the transition of the housing crisis from fragile groups to the core of Turkish society.

Economic analyst Mohamed Gulmaz says that the housing crisis in Turkey is mainly linked to the weakening of the supply against the demand, considering that the government’s plan to build half a million housing units, if implemented quickly and fairly, can help treat the matter, especially with the project allocating clear stakes for specific social groups such as the families of martyrs, people with special needs, retirees and youth, which ensures the support of support to those who actually need it and relieves pressure from the rental market.

Gulmaz added – in an interview with Al -Jazeera Net – that the inclusion of the social rent option for the first time through the Istanbul project represents a strategic step towards stabilizing rental prices in major cities.

He explains that the existence of a government destination that offers units for rent at subsidized prices that puts a ceiling for the market and provides a standard that limits random increases, and constitutes a model that can be generalized later in the rest of the states.

The project is expected to stimulate the economy by providing thousands of job opportunities in the construction sector and its associated industries, which enhances individual income and limits the effects of inflation on the purchasing power of the population.

However, the economic analyst notes that the success of the project in curbing prices will not be guaranteed unless other factors hinder the desired impact, appreciating that the accumulated housing deficit is greater than the number 500 thousand units, and indicates the presence of millions of vacant units that investors keep for speculation purposes.